This remarkable book offers both a passionate engagement with the concrete processes of political struggle in the English Revolution and a powerful critique of current theoretical models in historiography and literary theory. Intellectually alive from start to finish, Holstun’s book captures the polemical energy of the early modern radicals he discusses.”—David Norbrook, Merton Chair of Literature, Oxford UniversityHistory Ehud’s Dagger brings the events of the Civil War period and the ordinary people who made them to life.”—Observer History Today Choice Ehud’s Dagger is particularly welcome. Three cheers for it!”—Albion Reviewer’s Bookwatch
...thoroughly thought-provoking...
History: The Journal of the Historical Association
Powerfully cogent, often brilliant in its stylistic sophistication, and magisterial in the range of its scholarship ... a work brimming with intelligence.
Holstun writes with a meticulous attention to historical detail, evoking the sense of peering into the past through a window in time.
This remarkable book offers both a passionate engagement with the concrete processes sof political struggle in the English Revolution and a powerful critique of current theoretical models in historiography and literary theory. Intellectually alive from start to finish, Holstun's book captures the polemical energy of the early modern period he discusses.
... an examination of radical projects which demonstrate the practical contribution of working people to the 1650s.
Ehud's Dagger brings the events of the Civil War period and the ordinary people who made them to life.
... an intense, thoroughly researched new Marxist study of the English Revolution.
As an antidote to the distortions of revisionism and as an expression of the continuing vitality of Marxist historiography, Ehud's Dagger is particularly welcome. Three cheers for it!
Thoroughly thought-provoking.
A comprehensive critical analysis of historical and literary theories relating to the English Revolution.
"In this book," writes Holstun, author of and an English teacher at SUNY Buffalo, "I talk about some 17th- century malcontents, what upset them, what they said about it, and what they did about it. I argue that the radical praxis of working people played a crucial role in the English Revolution, the first capitalist and anti-capitalist revolution, and that it can help us better understand that struggle and the struggles of our own time." Holstun critiques the work of anti-communist historians and literary critics who have ignored or denied the role of working people in the English Revolution. He then draws on Bloch's utopian Marxism, Sartre's analysis of practical ensembles, and the works of British Marxist historians to reconstruct five radical projects of the time. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
James Holstun has written an original and stimulating book on class struggle in the English Revolution. With logic and wit he demolishes the fashionable revisionist interpretations, and combines theory with empirical studies to illuminate popular literature and radical activity.
Vivid and substantial accounts of the lives, works and allegiances of radicals, supported by a vigorous and comprehensive assessment of historical and critical methods. This challenge cannot be ignored.
