The Swinging 1660s

Read an abridged version of Pepys Diary. Most accounts of 1660s London lift directly from his diary.

March 1st 1662

... thence to the Opera and there saw Romeo and Julett, the first time it was ever acted [after the Restoration] But it is the play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do; ....

February 9 1668 Up, and at my chamber all the morning and the office doing business, and also reading a little of “L’escholle des filles,” which is a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world.

A fair few of the many, many histories of the period, particularly more recent ones, have "an angle", and attempt to clean up Cromwell's role in history or blacken it (not that's there;s much room to get darker, to be fair), or simply miss out too many events. To some extent it's unavoidable as so much appears to have gone on in those years, but I like to feel I got an overall view with balance rather than unwarranted revisionism. Of those I've come across, the one that puts it in the widest context is:

England's Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context by Jonathan Scott

I wasn't sure about this before reading, as I thought I'd read fairly widely on the period already. In taking the wider perspective you really do get what feels like a better view with what was going on elsewhere those years. The influence and deep seated fear of Popery, Catholic / Protestant struggles in surrounding countries, the rise of William of Orange etc. Perhaps not the lightest read, but well worth it.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/englands-troubles/9FF48...

For something a little lighter, hmm, let's think.

The English Civil War: A People's History by Diane Purkiss isn't a comprehensive coverage of the timeline, but being a people's history tries to give a feel for what it might be like living in the times. It's well balanced and shows that in some areas there wasn't much to choose between. Get something of a feel for being a little guy living with a war on fun, family and freedom, to live among the major-generals such as Charles Worsley who's busy breaking records for number of lives ruined, pubs closed, races stopped etc. Thankfully for the people of Manchester and surrounding counties, he died young!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/may/13/featuresreview...

For a quick overall history, try Peter Ackroyd's Civil War: The History of England Volume III (History of England Vol III).

I think he's known as a novelist. He concentrates a little too much on the story than analysis and probing deeply into events, but you do get the shape though unavoidably light on detail. Not a bad introduction then, and similar can be said for the others in the series. It's light, and lacking, but serves its purpose.

For in depth at pushing 1,000 pages, I've not seen anything that surpasses or even gets near Woolrych's Britain in Revolution.

Hopefully there's one that fits, pick your poison. :)

A lot of other reading indirectly points back to Civil War and the Cromwellian era -- it's one of those historic pinch points that shaped everything after. Irish resentments are put into context learning Cromwell killed off 10-20% of Ireland, or giving his ill educated and thuggish troops Irish land in place of pay, just trying to eliminate Popery and royalists. "The Troubles" started here, and the Cromwellian roots of the Orange orders -- which of course also stem from Dutch William of Orange too -- that pjc50 mentions. Or Cromwell's part in creating English language opera (by accident). Plays and bawdy songs were banned, opera escaped for a little while. Playwrights started setting plays to music to get around the anti-fun laws, and so English language opera was born...

Absolutely. I think most nations have similar highly warped popular views of their pasts -- Belgium hasn't dealt with Leopold II, America's popular founding story has Puritans as poor innocents, mere victims of unfair oppression who left for freedom in New England. They rarely learn what puritanism was, or that they started oppressing and killing off other religions once there in the freedom of the colonies. Or that many came back to fight Cromwell's war with Charles I to help create that Puritan Paradise in England and Ireland.

The Irish difficulty gets some context when you learn of William of Orange, Cromwell's attempts to remove Popery and royalism from Ireland, whilst giving the land of the recently massacred to his troops in place of pay.

I think schools do a mostly terrible job in setting the "national myth" in context of what was actually happening. So Cromwell ends up placed in BBC millennium votes of top 100 Britons. Somehow I think they didn't hear the whole story, or actually much of it at all. :)

That lasts to this day, given how puritan America behaves versus Caribbean, South America and Europe.