Christopher Hill examines the millenarian religious ferment of the seventeenth century and finds that it threw up many strange figures—among them an eccentric Anglican divine who prophesied that the second coming was soon to occur in his own parish, where he gathered a large community of religious squatters.
Christopher Hill introduces Roger Crab, former Cromwellian soldier and hatter of Chesham, who took literally the text: “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” Vegetarian, teetotal, celibate, he led the life of a hermit. This is the first of two studies in 17th-century eccentricity.
A leading actor in the civil war, Clarendon in his History offered an interpretation of the causes of the conflict which has been much debated by later historians, as Christopher Hill discusses here.
Christopher Hill marks the 300th anniversary of Bunyan 's death with a Portrait of a self-educated radical seen as a subversive by Restoration England’s Establishment
An Appreciation by Christopher Hill
The dramatic uphevals of 1989-90 in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union combined with the controversial thesis that these and other events presaged 'the end of history'. In a major series launched in April 1991 History Today asked a range of eminent historians to discuss whether in the light of this, Marxism and possibly other-isms retained any validity as tools for interpreting the progress of history within their field.
Christopher Hill continues the forum on words historians use by arguing that things exist before words describe them.
