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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great but slightly dated biography., 29 Aug 2001
I couldn't decide whether to give this book four or five stars.This book deserves five stars for its very well written, accurate and compelling portrait of Oliver Cromwell's involvement in the English Revolution. It has often been said of Cromwell that he represents the human incarnations of both Hobbes's Leviathan and Machiavelli's Prince. Hill has followed this interpretation with a subtly sophisticated portrayl of the relationship between Cromwell and the 'forces' and events that surrounded him. What is most revealling about the book is its intricate disection of this relationship, and presentation of how history is made both by individuals and the circumstances they make and are made by, in this case, dealing with an historical giant like Cromwell. Hill's Cromwell is, in a way, the model Puritan Revolutionary; God's Englishman driven by a divine sense of service and an instinctive drive to accomplish God's will. As such, Cromwell is criticised by Christopher Hill: in many ways he held back rather than helped the forces he had created, and often with a brutal, calculating wrath, shown in his treatment of the Levellers. What lets the book down is not its central argument. Rather, written as it was over thirty years ago, it is somewhat dated, and the sections dealing with the historical background of the Revolution lack the insights of later historical work. An unfortunate consequence of time. This cannot be helped. What can be helped is Hill's treatment of the life of Cromwell himself, the relationship with his family, and so on. I would have appreciated a little more insight here, but I saw that the point of the book, however, was obviously intended as a political history of Cromwell and England's turbulent decades. The book remains essential reading for all those interested in the English Revolution. Dated, but it is the work of a great historian studying a great historical figure, Cromwell, for whom I begrudgingly have a deep admiration.
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