Liberty, Authority, Formality: Political Ideas and Culture, 1600-1900

The essays in this volume are all inspired by the historical scholarship of J.C. Davis. During a prolific career, Davis has transformed our understanding of early modern utopian literature and its contexts, and compelled students of seventeenth-century English to re-evaluate the significance of movements and individuals who have had a prominent place in the historiography of the English Revolution. Davis's analyses of groups like the Levellers and individuals like Gerrard Winstanley and Oliver Cromwell has reoriented the inquiry around the contemporary moral themes of liberty, authority and formality — around which concepts this volume engages.