England's Culture Wars

Puritan Reformation and It's Enemies in the Interregnum, 1649-1660

De: Bernard Capp

Narrado por: Bruce Mann

Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress, and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.

England's Culture Wars explores how far this agenda could be enforced, especially in urban communities which offered the greatest potential to build a godly civic commonwealth. How far were local magistrates and ministers willing to cooperate, and what coercive powers did the regime possess to silence or remove dissidents? How far did the reformers themselves wish to go, and how did they reconcile godly reformation with the demands of decency and civility? Music and dancing lived on, in genteel contexts, early opera replaced the plays now forbidden, and puritans themselves were often fond of hunting and hawking. Bernard Capp explores the propaganda wars waged in press and pulpit, how energetically reformation was pursued, and how much or little was achieved. Many recent historians have dismissed interregnum reformation as a failure. He demonstrates that while the reforming drive varied enormously from place to place, its impact could be powerful. The book is therefore structured in three parts: setting out the reform agenda and challenges, surveying general issues and patterns, and finally offering a number of representative case-studies. It draws on a wide range of sources, including local and central government records, judicial records, pamphlets, sermons, newspapers, diaries, letters, and memoirs; and demonstrates how court records by themselves give us only a very limited picture of what was happening on the ground.

©2012 Bernard Capp (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Clearly label University press texts

This is an academic monograph for Oxford University Press, If you look carefully at the thumbnail, you might have some indication, but I think it could be clearer for the benefit of most Audible listeners.

I rated this book as excellent on its own terms, as an academic history. On that basis it is excellent. However, the book is written for an expert audience. The author presumes working facility with the theological and political disputes that led to the English Civil War and the events of the war.. If you are not familiar, you better be prepared to look up a lot of things.. In a popular history, one or two good examples are enough to make any point. An academic historian is rewarded for providing as many historical examples as possible.. If you are writing a paper about the period, you will appreciate every example you can get.. If you are listening as entertainment, you will very often be bored.