Review: Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (1972)

[truepenny]

The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Justifiably classic work on the explosion of radical sects that occurred during the English Civil War. Nowadays, we only know about the Quakers (and Hill talks about why it is that the Quakers survived), but there were Diggers and Levellers and Ranters and Grindletonians and Muggletonians... And the thing about them that Hill conveys very well is that, along with being radical religious groups, they were all Utopian experiments, trying to imagine a better system than what they had. Some of what they came up with, especially Gerrard Winstanley, sounds shockingly modern and Marxist---the abolition of private property was one a lot of them had in common, and they were trying to figure out what do you do NEXT? Unfortunately, the answer is, you get betrayed by the generals, and the power that almost shifted in your favor shifts back, and before you know it, the world turns "right side up" again and hello, Charles II.

Hill is an excellent writer, and he writes about his very dense subject matter very clearly.



Four and a half stars, round up to five.



View all my reviews

Comments

[anne]

Muggletonians were real? Amazing. I can't remember which 1920s author had the Old Muggletonians--Sayers? Wodehouse?

[larryhammer]

I'm curious on his take on why Quakers survived. I'm familiar with the standard take within Quakerism, especially in contrast the Ranters, but an outside view would be interesting.

[truepenny]

Basically, he says the Quakers compromised where a number of the other sects did not---after what happened to James Nayler, George Fox backtracked.

[larryhammer]

That's consonant with the Quaker version -- Naylor had a profound influence, mainly reactionary, on early Friends. The Quaker version also cites Fox's systematization of church structure (Monthly and Yearly Meetings) as another main factor.