Oliver Cromwell

"Barry Coward is a writer of a number of general works on the 17th century. He brings extreme lucidity and conciseness to the topic. It’s a short book, which is – and doesn’t claim to be more than – a very clear account of the main debates about Cromwell. It doesn’t argue a very strong line itself; it simply represents the different strands of thought there are about Cromwell. For instance, if you read Cromwell’s own words, he comes across as a sincere man trying to teach the English the responsibilities of liberty. He’s freed them from tyranny under kings and bishops; now they have to learn the responsibilities of liberty. That’s one view. Another view is that actually, behind this rhetoric of liberty, lay a man ruthlessly pursuing a career and bent from an early stage on personal power. Coward looks at the evidence for both those points of view. So it’s just an admirable summary of the state of play as it was when he wrote it, which is not that long ago – things haven’t moved on that much. Yes. It’s a very good first book for students, and it also gives general readers a much stronger sense of all the major debates in the field."