Understanding Popular Violence in the English Revolution: The Colchester Plunderers [Hardcover]

A re-evaluation and critique of one of the most important episodes of the 'English Revolution'.This book makes an original contribution to the history of the English Revolution and to the meaning of crowd behaviour. It recreates one of the most famous episodes in which crowds from Essex and Suffolk attacked and plundered the houses of the gentry, and sought to 'ethnically cleanse' their communities of Catholics. The deeper perspective offered by history shows that this action was not 'blind violence': the book deciphers the logic that informed the crowd's behaviour, and finds evidence of both the importance--and reach--of puritanism and popular parliamentarianism.This book makes an original contribution to the history of the English Revolution and to the meaning of crowd behaviour. It recreates one of the most famous episodes in which crowds from Essex and Suffolk attacked and plundered the houses of the gentry, and sought to 'ethnically cleanse' their communities of Catholics. The deeper perspective offered by history shows that this action was not 'blind violence': the book deciphers the logic that informed the crowd's behaviour, and finds evidence of both the importance--and reach--of puritanism and popular parliamentarianism.This book makes an original contribution to the history of the English Revolution and to the meaning of crowd behavior. It recreates one of the most famous episodes, in which crowds from Essex and Suffolk attacked and plundered the houses of the gentry, and sought to ethnically cleanse their communities of Catholics. The deeper perspective offered by history shows that this action was not blind violence : the book deciphers the logic that informed the crowd's behavior, and finds evidence of both the importance--and reach--of puritanism and popular parliamentarianism.Introduction; Part I. The Event: 1. An event and its history; 2. The attacks; Part II. Contextualising the Crowd: 3. Contextualising crowd actions I: the micro-politics of thel“.