"How did ordinary people, caught up in the violent political and social dislocation of the English Revolution, perceive such astonishing events? The Battle of the Frogs & Fairford's Flies attempts to answer this question through a close study of some 500 newsbooks and pulp publications produced from 1640 to 1660. Like The Great Cat Massacre and The Cheese and the Worms, this fascinating and original work enters the world of enchanted belief, superstition, folk religion, and magic." "Jerome Friedman investigates why Englishmen outside Parliamentary circles were in fact only incidentally concerned with the political, economic, and religious questions that have so preoccupied scholars of the period. And why, instead, the best-selling issues concerned witches, prodigies, apparitions, divine curses, the readmittance of Jews to England, and an obsession with converting the Turks to Christianity. For the great majority of people the period seems to have caused an upswelling of credulous superstition and bizarre prophecy, rather than the radicalization often assumed, and a vivid picture emerges of a frightened, confused society." "Friedman examines, too, the Puritan "battle for morality," the attempts to combat ale-drinking, prostitution, pornography, and the new fascination with marijuana, and how these issues became entangled in popular assessments of the revolution. Finally, by relating all these concerns to the popular astrological and prophetic literature of the day, the author provides convincing answers as to why so many Englishmen ultimately greeted the return of Charles II with joy and relief."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved