Lucy Hughes-Hallett

The radicals of 17th-century England began to think the unthinkable

Jonathan Healey describes how Diggers, Levellers and other revolutionary sects started proposing universal male suffrage, legal aid and even a national health service

Oliver Cromwell directs the felling of the Royal Oak of Britain. From The Compleat History of Independency by Clement Walker, 1661. [Bridgeman Images]
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  • The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England

    Jonathan Healey

    Bloomsbury, pp. 488, £30

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