This is an early work by Hill, the premier Marxist historian of the English Revolution — actually a collection and reworking of previously published essays which, like most academics' early works, tend a bit toward tendentiousness and an overly academic writing style. In no way comparable to his superb study of the various revolutionary sects in The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution.

3½***, mainly because of its final two chapters, the penultimate on Andrew Marvell and the especially good final chapter on Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. ( )