REPUBLIC

Alice Hunt brilliantly reanimates this most extraordinary decade It is a gripping tale of political and cultural crisis but also one of joy and hopeful innovation told with eloquence and passion MALCOLM GASKILL A magisterial compelling and eye opening biography of Britain s great and extraordinary experiment SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB Events moved with giddying speed in the 1650s After the execution of Charles I dangerous monarchy was abolished and the House of Lords was dismissed sending shock waves across the kingdom These revolutionary acts set in motion a decade of bewildering change and instability under the leadership of the soldier statesman Oliver Cromwell England s unique and distinctive republican experiment may have been short lived but it changed the course of British history It transformed the relationship between England Scotland and Ireland reset the compact between the monarch and the people and re fashioned the story the British told and continue to tell about themselves REPUBLIC is a richly engrossing year by year account of this exhilarating and daring period It tells the story of what Britain s republic was really like why it failed but also what it got right