- 1979 edition, 342 pages
- Published by Croom Helm, London
- Hardcover with dust jacket. Black Boards.
- Very good condition. Minor dust jacket wear, fading. Name inside front cover and owner sticker on free front end paper.
Indexed. Richard Baxter was the most celebrated of Puritan protagonists. He was both the observer and commentator on the Civil War, and the victim of Restoration bigotry. He represented the embodiment of what Weber and Tawney understood as the Protestant ethic.
The notes made by Richard Baxter towards the end of his life, whilst in prison, form the basis of this revisionist study, rendering a reappraisal of the 17th century English Revolution.
Although historians no longer confine interest in the Millennium - the expectation of Christ's return on Earth to establish a thousand-year reign - to the'lunatic fringe' sects, Baxter was presumed to be the enemy of such speculations. Such a belief does not survive a careful study of his prison manuscripts, and the difference contributed by them to the integral understanding of Baxter and his fellow Puritians is traced with fascinating detail throughout the book.
Conventional assumptions concerning the origins of the Civil War, the significance of the Commonwealth period, and the nature of Restoration non-conformity are vigorously challenged in successive chapters which follow the initial discussion of how Baxter and the Millennium came together. Finally the implications of these findings are summarised, sustaining the argument that to read Baxter afresh is to read the English Revolution afresh.
Product is in stock.
