The Common Freedom of the People: John Lilburne and the English Revolution
Michael Braddick
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
The second son of a modest gentry family, John Lilburne was accused of treason four times, and put on trial for his life under both Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. He fought bravely in the Civil War, seeing action at a number of key battles and rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, was shot through the arm, and nearly lost an eye in a pike accident. In the course of all this, he fought important legal battles for the rights to remain silent, to open trial, and to trial by his peers. He was twice acquitted by juries in very public trials, but nonetheless spent the bulk of his adult life in prison or exile. He is best known, however, as the most prominent of the Levellers, who campaigned for a government based on popular sovereignty two centuries before the advent of mass representative democracies in Europe. Michael Braddick explores the extraordinary and dramatic life of "Freeborn John" how his experience of political activism sharpened and clarified his ideas, leading him to articulate bracingly radical views; and the changes in English society that made such a career possible. Without land, established profession, or public office, successive governments found him sufficiently alarming to be worth imprisoning, sent into exile, and put on trial for his life. Above all, through his story, we can explore the life not just of John Lilburne, but of revolutionary England itself--and of ideas fundamental to the radical, democratic, libertarian, and constitutional traditions, both in Britain and the USA.
Product Details
Price
$43.69
Publisher
Oxford University Press, USA
Publish Date
October 09, 2018
Pages
416
Dimensions
6.0 X 9.3 X 1.4 inches | 1.45 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780198803232
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Become an affiliateAbout the Author
Michael Braddick is Professor of History at the University of Sheffield, and has held academic positions and visiting Fellowships in the USA, France, and Germany. He has published widely on the social, political, and economic history of British and American society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His most recent book is God's Fury, England's Fire (2008).
Reviews
"This is a first rate historical work that transcends its biographical framework and successfully draws readers into the larger political, religious, and intellectual issues of the English Revolution." -- Gary S. De Krey, Journal of Modern History
"Braddick's "political life" of Lilburne is...well worth reading." -- Jon Fitzgibbons, The Seventeenth Century
"Braddick presents Lilburne as an activist rather than a political thinker, as primarily concerned with tactics and political mobilization. Lilburne's ideas are interesting but, his real significance and legacy - Braddick suggests - are in the realm of political practice" -- Rachel Hammersley, The Times Literary Supplement
"A comprehensive political life [of Lilburne] by one of this generation's most distinguished and productive historians of the English Revolution EL meticulously researched and unlikely to be exceeded in its recovery of many aspects of Lilburne's life..." -- J.C. Davis, Journal of the Northern Renaissance