God's Englishman

This distinguished biography of Oliver Cromwell, perhaps the most complex major figure in all of British history, presents for the modern reader a concise, brilliant account of the political and social turmoil of seventeenth-century England and of the austere, contradictory man who rose from country gentry, served as general of the New Model parliamentary army, and became a virtual dictator in the name of political freedom. Cromwell is seen through the Revolution, and the Revolution through Cromwell. Large emphasis is given to the religious ideas that inspired Cromwell, which generally have been badly misunderstood. The result is a salutary, many-layered study of acute clarity and profound understanding.