Description
Book SynopsisFollowing the execution of Charles I in January 1649, England''s fledgling republic was faced with a dilemma: which parts of the nation''s bloody recent past should be remembered, and how, and which were best consigned to oblivion? Across the country, the state''s opponents, local communities, and individual citizens were grappling with many of the same questions, as calls for remembrance vied with the competing goals of reconciliation, security, and the peaceful settlement of the state. Recollection in the Republics provides the first comprehensive study of the ways Britain''s Civil Wars were remembered in the decade between the regicide and the restoration. Drawing on a wide-ranging and innovative source base, it places the national authorities'' attempts to shape the meaning of the recent past alongside evidence of what the English people - lords and labourers, men and women, veterans and civilians - actually were remembering. Recollection in the Replublics demonstrates that memories of the domestic conflicts were central to the politics and society of England''s republican interval, inflecting national and local discourses, complicating and transforming inter-personal relationships, and infusing and forging individual and collective identities. In so doing, it enhances our understanding of the nature of early modern memory and the experience of post-civil war states more broadly. Memory was a multifaceted, dynamic resource, and this book emphasises its fecundity, the manifold meanings it possessed, and the creativity of those who deployed it. Further, by situating 1650s England in relation to other post-conflict societies, both within and beyond early modernity, it points to a consistency in some of the challenges that have confronted post-civil war states across time and space.
Trade Review... this book represents a very welcome addition to a burgeoning body of scholarship, to which Peck has already contributed with valuable articles and chapters. * Jason Peacey, University College London, Parliamentary History *
Peck succeeds in writing the first comprehensive account of how the civil wars were remembered over the 1650s—a wonderful addition to the historiography of the period. * Waseem Ahmed, Journal of British Studies *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Republican Recollections 2: Rival Recollections 3: Memories in Everyday Discourse 4: Places of Memory 5: Narratives of War Conclusion
