Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil War And The Passions Of Posterity

The English civil wars tore the nation apart - and have divided it ever since. Debate between Cavaliers and Roundheads has persisted down the centuries as each generation projects its own concerns on to the conflict.

Here Blair Worden examines the fluctuating reputations of leading parliamentarians and republicans: of Edmund Ludlow, whose memoirs were spectacularly forged; of the Whig martyr Algernon Sidney; of the Levellers, icons of modern socialism; and above all of Oliver Cromwell, both demonized as a bloodthirsty hypocrite and idolized as a progressive hero.

This masterly study shows that, after centuries of controversy, the fighting has never really stopped.