God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars

Braddick, Michael

ISBN 10: 0141008970 / ISBN 13: 9780141008974

Published by Penguin, 2009

Seller Inventory # mon0000536580

Synopsis:

A brilliantly researched and vividly written history of the English Civil Wars, from one of Britain's most prominent Civil War historians

The sequence of civil wars that ripped England apart in the seventeenth century was the single most traumatic event in this country between the medieval Black Death and the two world wars. Indeed, it is likely that a greater percentage of the population were killed in the civil wars than in the First World War.

This sense of overwhelming trauma gives this major new history its title: God’s Fury, England’s Fire. The name of a pamphlet written after the king’s surrender, it sums up the widespread feeling within England that the seemingly endless nightmare that had destroyed families, towns and livelihoods was ordained by a vengeful God – that the people of England had sinned and were now being punished. As with all civil wars, however, ‘God’s fury’ could support or destroy either side in the conflict. Was God angry at Charles I for failing to support the true, protestant, religion and refusing to work with Parliament? Or was God angry with those who had dared challenge His anointed Sovereign?

Michael Braddick’s remarkable book gives the reader a vivid and enduring sense both of what it was like to live through events of uncontrollable violence and what really animated the different sides.

God’s Fury, England’s Fire allows readers to understand once more the events that have so fundamentally marked this country and which still resonate centuries after their bloody ending.

About the Author: Michael Braddick is Professor of History at the University of Sheffield. He is the author of The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1700 and State Formation in Early Modern England, c.1500–1700.

Bibliographic Details

Title: God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of...
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 2009
Binding: paperback
Condition: Good