The Irrelevance of Revisionism: Gender, Politics, and Society in Early Modern England

Review of periodical literature published in 2015

“…Bowen, Morrill, Spaeth, and Withington, and a consensus emerges that while few historians were persuaded by Underdown's ecological model of Civil War allegiance the book nonetheless represents a pioneering and ambitious attempt to integrate the political and socio‐economic histories of early modern England. A similarly reflective special issue of Huntington Library Quarterly revisits the impact and legacy of ‘revisionism’ in Civil War studies, with essays by Amussen and Walter focusing in particular on the relationship between this historiographical ‘moment’ and the development of social history. Both argue that political and social history were largely insulated from each other at that time, and that it was only really with the development of post‐revisionism—of which Underdown was a pioneering figure—that social historians became more interested in the intersection of local and national politics, and political historians began to acknowledge the social depth of politics.…”