RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewHealey’s book is refreshing for its energetic writing, engaging wit and sound foundation in recent historical scholarship. It is light on analysis, but rich with anecdotes and explanations. Narrative sketches take precedence over probing of causes and consequences. Rather than advancing a new interpretation, Healey captures the vitality and turbulence of 17th-century England in an effective retelling, with many more players than the typical cast of kings and queens ... While narrating this tempestuous past, Healey has an eye on the present. He regards key stages in the political and intellectual history of revolutionary England as \'steps on a longer journey\' toward modern democracy. Belief in such a trajectory used to be called \'Whiggish.\' This readable and informative overview evokes a lost world which, for better or worse, \'was blazing a path toward our own.\'
