Soldiers and Statesmen
The General Council of the Army and its Debates 1647-1648
Published on 4. June 1987
Book
Hardback
374 pages
978-0-19-822752-6 (ISBN)
Description
In this study Professor Woolrych looks beyond such well-known occasions as the Putney debates to examine the whole political activity of Fairfax's and Cromwell's army between the first and second Civil Wars, and places it in its full context. He throws new light on the origins and proceedings of the agitators, and by clearly distinguishing between them and the new agents whom the Levellers sponsored in the autumn of 1647, he shows that the protagonists in the Putney debates, and even the issues, were not quite as they have seemed.
Soldiers and Statesmen offers a reinterpretation of a critical turning-point in the Great Rebellion, and suggests that the army which eventually brought the king to the scaffold would have restored him to his throne if he had dealt with it in good faith.
Soldiers and Statesmen offers a reinterpretation of a critical turning-point in the Great Rebellion, and suggests that the army which eventually brought the king to the scaffold would have restored him to his throne if he had dealt with it in good faith.
Reviews / Votes
'carefully and meticulously researched; it argues cogently and shrewdly; it is cautious and courteous in overturning accepted views; and it is beautifully written'The Times Literary Supplement 'another impeccably researched and admirably presented monograph on the earlier climacteric of the English Revolution in the later 1640s ... There is so much to praise and so little to criticise here ... Here is a book that any historian could justly be proud to have written.' G.E. Aylmer, St Peter's College, Oxford
The Historical Association 'This is a book of meticulous scholarship which gives the soldiers the consideration they so richly deserve.'
Brian Lyndon, Society for Army Historical Research 'No one before Austin Woolrych ... has composed a full account of its activities, set the Putney Debates in such a detailed and careful context, or shown so clearly their place in the army's protracted discussions about the settlement of the kingdom after the First Civil War ... all will surely admire the skill and scholarly precision with which he recounts the history of the General Council.'
David Underdown, Yale University. Parliamentary History 'Written with clarity and controlled enthusiasm, emphatically scholarly but never ponderous, Soldiers and Statesmen is a work of major importance, innovative and modifying equally long-standing and more recent reviews of not only military but of parliamentary and kingly politics.'
History and Archaeology Review
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Oxford University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
661 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-822752-6 (9780198227526)
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Schweitzer Classification