Robert Ashton, The English Civil War (1978)

 I began reading Robert Ashton's book again last evening after a gap of many years. I had forgotten the high quality of his writing in his later years at the UEA and his acute appreciation of the contours of Court and Country culture in the early Stuart period. Interestingly, he had some sharp points to make about the excessive attention given to the Levellers and Diggers in the historiography of the 1640s, attention inspired in part, he suggested, by modern political apprehensions. There is something in this observation in my view but I should be interested to learn what others think on thi s issue.

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