Further reading

The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714 by Christopher Hill (Routledge, 1990) £15.99
The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill (Penguin, 1991) £10.99
God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell by Christopher Hill (Penguin, 1990) £9.99
There is an immense range of books about the English Civil War, but one historian stands out above all others for the range and quality of his work on the subject: Christopher Hill. These three books are but a sample of his immense output over more than half a century of writing on the subject. Since it was first published in 1961, The Century of Revolution has become established as a classic. It tries to penetrate below the familiar events to grasp what happened – to ordinary English men and women as well as to kings and queens or abstractions like society and the State. The World Turned Upside Down looks within the English Revolution of the mid-17th century, which resulted in the triumph of the Protestant ethic – the ideology of the propertied class, to uncover another, quite different, revolution, involving such radical groups as the Diggers and the Levellers. And God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell looks at the man who, more than any other, is most associated with the upheavals of this period.

Cavaliers and Roundheads: the English at War, 1642-1649 by Christopher Hibbert (Harper Collins, 1994) £9.99
This social as well as military history recreates the scenes of civil war in England, between 1642 and 1649, and is enlivened by character sketches not only of the leading participants (Charles I, Prince Rupert, Oliver Cromwell), but also of the numerous lesser characters, male and female, who took part in the desperate conflict.

Other titles include:

The Royalist War Effort 1642-1646 by Ronald Hutton (Routledge, 2nd ed 1999) £17.99
Shows how the English War was achieved and sustained, and how ultimately it was won and lost.

The Civil Wars of England by John Kenyon (Phoenix, new ed 1996) £9.99
A good, well-written and pithy introduction to the complex and controversial arena of Civil War history.

The King's War 1641-47 by C V Wedgwood (Penguin, 2001) £7.99
Classic narrative account of the English Civil Wars, first published in 1958, full of detail but very easy to read. A good introduction.

Archaeology of the English Civil War by Peter Harrington (Shire Publications, 1992) £4.99