Catherine Fletcher’s The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican has received enthusiastic praise from the British cultural scene. The compliments are typical: described as a “brilliant feat of original research,” an “eye-opening” look at Tudor diplomacy, and a fresh contribution to a period thought to be overstudied after centuries of scholarship. However, these praises say more about the current intellectual climate than about the true historical importance of Fletcher’s work.

Fletcher is undoubtedly a skilled historian. Her discovery of Gregorio Casali — a mostly overlooked diplomatic agent working in Rome for Henry VIII — is a significant archival achievement. She writes clearly and with narrative flair, and her depiction of Casali’s environment, from papal court intrigues to the shady dealings of bribery and influence-peddling, is both engaging and insightful. However, the book’s strengths are closely tied to its limitations. Despite its detailed micro-history, it does not provide a broader historical explanation. It vividly describes Henry’s efforts to secure his divorce but offers little about why the English Reformation happened or the social forces behind it.

The Liberal Fetish for the “Untold Story”

The book’s premise—telling the divorce crisis from the perspective of a minor diplomatic figure—embodies a common trend in modern liberal historiography. This trend has moved away from viewing history primarily as shaped by social forces. Instead, it emphasises the “untold story,” focusing on forgotten individuals and marginal actors. This perspective is not politically neutral; it mirrors an ideological fatigue among the ruling class, which now tends to see history as a series of personal dramas, bureaucratic manoeuvres, and chance episodes rather than a broader social process.

Casali is a fascinating figure: a young Italian nobleman, well-connected, resourceful, and skilled at navigating the corrupt intricacies of the papal court. Fletcher provides a detailed account of his activities—covering bribes, gifts, thefts, and negotiations—building on her earlier research about gift-giving and corruption in early modern Rome. However, this narrow focus on Casali limits the broader perspective. The book ultimately becomes a study of diplomatic techniques rather than a deeper exploration of the significant transformations taking place across Europe.

Tudor England & The Birth of Capitalist Social Relations

Karl Marx did not produce a single comprehensive treatise on Tudor England. However, in his economic writings and historical notes, he consistently regarded the sixteenth century as a pivotal moment — when the old feudal system started to break down, and the roots of capitalism were established. To Marx, the Tudors were more than just vibrant monarchs or figures in a national story; they oversaw a social revolution.

Marx’s key insight is that feudalism fell not due to political schemes or royal personalities, but because the expansion of commodity production undermined its economic base, the monetisation of labour duties, and the rise of a rural bourgeoisie. In Capital, Marx straightforwardly characterises the late medieval crisis as: “The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil is the basis of the whole process.” (Capital, Vol. I)

This expropriation—the violent detachment of the peasantry from their land—lies at the core of Marx’s analysis of Tudor England. It serves as the foundation for the formation of a proletariat. During the Tudor period, particularly under Henry VII and Henry VIII, the traditional feudal relations were already in rapid decline: feudal dues were increasingly converted into cash payments, lords depended more on paid retainers than on feudal levies, and commercial agriculture grew, fuelled by rising wool prices. A new class of “improving landlords” appeared, focused on profit rather than feudal duties. Marx regarded these changes not as mere isolated reforms but as the initial phases of capitalist accumulation.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Primitive Accumulation in Action

Marx’s detailed analysis of Tudor England focuses on the dissolution of the monasteries, viewing it as a prime example of primitive accumulation. This violent, state-led process laid the groundwork for capitalism. These monasteries were more than religious sites; they were significant landowners, employers, and social welfare centres. Their dissolution between 1536 and 1541 led to a major transfer of property from the church to secular authority, the emergence of a new landowning class that became the backbone of the English bourgeoisie, and the eviction of tens of thousands of tenants, which sped up the rise of a landless workforce. Marx stated, “The Reformation in England was a gigantic process of spoliation.” (Capital, Vol. I)

This “spoliation” was integral to Henry’s divorce and served as the driving force behind the English Reformation. Marx highlights that the Tudor monarchy had a paradoxical role, simultaneously acting as: the dismantler of feudal chaos by suppressing noble private armies; the catalyst of capitalist development through enclosure, expropriation, and market enforcement; and the protector of absolutism by resisting the political demands of the emerging bourgeoisie. This contradiction clarifies why Tudor support from the commercial classes persisted in the 15th and 16th centuries, while the Stuart monarchy—bearing the same absolutist framework—was ultimately overthrown by those same classes in the 17th century.

Although Marx did not live to document the complete history of this transition, Christopher Hill later posed the question in explicitly Marxian terms: why did the alliance between Crown and Parliament break down? The explanation is rooted in the very process Marx described — the expansion of capitalist forces that clashed with monarchical absolutism.

Enclosure: The Creation of the Proletariat

Marx’s most striking descriptions of Tudor England focus on the enclosure movement. He vividly portrays the forced eviction of peasants, using language that foreshadows the WSWS’s commentary on modern social devastation: “The history of this expropriation is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.” (Capital, Vol. I) During the Tudor era: common lands were enclosed, peasants were forcibly ousted, vagabondage laws criminalised the displaced, and labour discipline was enforced through whipping, branding, and execution. Marx viewed these harsh measures as the tumultuous birth of capitalism—marking the rise of a class compelled to sell their labour.

Henry VIII and the Reformation: A Social, Not Personal, Crisis

Marx rejected the idea, still upheld by revisionists, that Henry’s split from Rome was merely personal or theological. Instead, he saw it as a political act reflecting a deeper social change: the English state asserting its sovereignty over the Church’s universal authority. This move stopped the flow of wealth to Rome and broke the Catholic Church’s ideological dominance, allowing space for bourgeois religious movements like Calvinism and Puritanism. Additionally, property relations across the nation were reshaped. According to Marx, Henry VIII was not just a tyrant motivated by sexual frustration but a complex agent of historical change—a king whose personal motives intersected with larger structural forces he could neither fully grasp nor control.

The Long Arc Toward Revolution

Marx’s scattered observations on Tudor England suggest a broader conclusion: the 1640s English Revolution was not an unpredictable outburst but the result of a long-standing historical process. The Tudors dismantled feudalism, while the Stuarts aimed to uphold absolutism. As the bourgeoisie grew stronger through the very processes Marx describes, it ultimately challenged and overthrew the state that had facilitated its emergence. Scholars like Hill, Dobb, and Tawney expanded this idea into a comprehensive Marxist view of English history. However, the core remains Marx’s: the Reformation and Tudor revolution marked key phases in the shift from feudalism to capitalism.

What Fletcher Cannot See

Henry VIII’s divorce was part of a larger social upheaval that had been unfolding over centuries. The late medieval system—often called “bastard feudalism”—was in decline. The emergence of market economy, the rise of the bourgeoisie, and the increased monetisation of feudal duties all chipped away at the old societal structure. Events like the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt, and the centralisation of royal power under the Tudors mark stages in a prolonged shift from feudalism to capitalism.

This transition was neither smooth nor merely the result of monarchs’ whims. Instead, it was fuelled by the clash between rising economic powers and the political-religious institutions of medieval Europe. Luther’s 1517 revolt was more than a theological dispute; it embodied a social revolution’s ideological core. Similarly, the English Reformation cannot be reduced—despite revisionist historians’ claims—to Henry’s sexual frustrations or the supposed “deficiencies of his reproductive system.” Such explanations, still popular in some academic circles, are fundamentally flawed. They ignore the roles of class forces, economic interests, and political conflicts.

David Walsh, writing on the WSWS, highlighted that Henry’s split from Rome signalled the rise of economic forces incompatible with feudal society and the growth of a national identity. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 was more than just a legal move; it formally established a new political order. The dissolution of the monasteries was not merely a consequence of Henry’s marital issues but a significant transfer of property that sped up the development of capitalist relations in England.

None of this is covered in Fletcher’s book. The Reformation serves as a backdrop, a distant rumble behind diplomatic scenes. The reader might think history is shaped by clever agents, secret negotiations, and the personal worries of kings — exactly the perspective the WSWS has always challenged.

The Historical Question Fletcher Cannot Pose.

Christopher Hill, a renowned Marxist historian, posed a key question: why did the Tudor monarchy, once backed by the emerging merchant classes, turn into a tyrannical regime? Why did the alliance between Crown and Parliament—created to oppose the feudal nobility and the authority of Rome—break down so dramatically in the 1640s? This question cannot be answered by examining Casali’s letters or the protocol of papal gift-giving. Instead, it demands an understanding of broad historical trends in England: the rise of capitalist relations, the conflicts within the early modern state, and the eventual outbreak of civil war and revolution. Fletcher’s book, limited to a very narrow narrative scope, cannot address these issues. This is not a lack of research but a flaw in the choice of historical approach.

The Divorce of Henry VIII is a well‑written, thoroughly researched, and often engaging work of micro‑history. It succeeds on its own terms. But those terms are inadequate. The book offers a detailed account of diplomatic manoeuvring while leaving untouched the social forces that shaped the Reformation and the modern world. Readers seeking to understand the historical significance of Henry’s break with Rome — not merely its bureaucratic mechanics — must turn to the Marxist tradition: Hill, Tawney, and the analyses published on the WSWS. Fletcher has recovered a forgotten man. But the history that matters remains elsewhere.

Tudor England: Sources and Bibliography

I. Primary Marx & Engels Sources

Karl Marx

• Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I. (Especially Part VIII: “So‑Called Primitive Accumulation.”)
• Capital, Vol. III.
• Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy.
• Pre‑Capitalist Economic Formations.
• Theories of Surplus Value, Vols. I–III.
• The German Ideology (with Engels).
• Critique of the Gotha Programme.
• Letters to Vera Zasulich (for Marx’s reflections on communal property and historical transitions).

Friedrich Engels

• The Peasant War in Germany.
• Anti‑Dühring.
• Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
• The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
• England in 1845 and 1885: The Condition of the Working Class in England (for later consequences of Tudor-era transformations).

II. Marxist Historians on Feudalism → Capitalism

Christopher Hill

• The English Revolution 1640.
• Society and Puritanism in Pre‑Revolutionary England.
• The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714.
• The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution.
• Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament.
• Puritanism and Revolution.
• Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution.
• Change and Continuity in Seventeenth‑Century England.
• Reformation to Industrial Revolution (with R. H. Tawney).

R. H. Tawney

• The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century.
• Religion and the Rise of Capitalism.
• The Rise of the Gentry, 1558–1640 (classic debate with Trevor‑Roper).

Maurice Dobb

• Studies in the Development of Capitalism.
• The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (Dobb–Sweezy debate).

Eric Hobsbawm

• The Age of Revolution.
• Industry and Empire.
• Labouring Men (essays on class formation).

E. P. Thompson

• The Making of the English Working Class.
• Customs in Common (especially essays on enclosure and moral economy).

Rodney Hilton

• Bond Men Made Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381.
• The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages.
• Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism.

III. Marxist and Materialist Studies of Tudor England

On the Tudor State, Reformation, and Social Transformation

• Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641.
• G. R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (not Marxist, but essential for state formation).
• A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation.
• Jack Scarisbrick, Henry VIII.
• Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (broad but indispensable).
• Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged (on law, labour discipline, and early capitalism).
• Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution (on class conflict and the English bourgeoisie).

On Enclosure, Primitive Accumulation, and Agrarian Change

• J. A. Yelling, Common Field and Enclosure in England, 1450–1850.
• Joan Thirsk, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vols. IV–V.
• E. Kerridge, Agrarian Problems in the Sixteenth Century and After.
• W. G. Hoskins, The Age of Plunder: The England of Henry VIII.
• Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (for enclosure as social catastrophe).

IV. WSWS and Contemporary Marxist Analysis

David Walsh (WSWS)

• “Elizabeth and a Weakened Historical Sense,” World Socialist Web Site, 3 December 1998.
• “Christopher Hill and the English Revolution,” WSWS essays and obituaries.
• “The English Revolution and the Development of Historical Materialism” (WSWS commentary).

Nick Beams (WSWS)

• Essays on primitive accumulation, capitalism’s origins, and Marx’s method.

Tom Mackaman (WSWS)

• Articles on early modern class formation and historical method.

WSWS Cultural & Historical Analysis

• Reviews of Hill, Tawney, and debates on the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
• WSWS coverage of contemporary attacks on materialist historiography.

V. Tudor Political, Social, and Economic History (Non‑Marxist but Essential)

General Tudor Studies

• John Guy, Tudor England.
• Susan Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors.
• Steven Gunn, Henry VII’s New Men and the Making of Tudor England.
• Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (Catholic England before the Reformation).
• Ethan Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation.

Diplomacy, Rome, and Henry’s Divorce

• Catherine Fletcher, The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican.
• Catherine Fletcher, Diplomatic Renaissance: The Papal Court and Early Modern Politics.
• G. W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation (revisionist counterpoint).

VI. Primary Sources for Tudor England

• Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (21 volumes).
• State Papers Online: Early Modern Government.
• The Acts of the Privy Council.
• The Statutes of the Realm (for enclosure laws, vagrancy acts, and Reformation legislation).
• The Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London.
• The Zurich Letters (Reformation correspondence).
• The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Exeter Conspiracy

This extensive three-volume collection — comprising 1,077 documents carefully gathered over years by nine editors — is more than a scholarly achievement. It serves as a challenge in the ongoing ideological debate about the significance of England’s only revolution. For centuries, Cromwell has been co-opted, sanitised, and reinterpreted by those in power to hide the revolutionary aspects of the events he was part of.

This edition, by returning to Cromwell’s actual writings and statements, pierces through the ideological haze and confronts the true historical forces of the seventeenth century: class conflict, religious radicalism as a sign of social upheaval, and the complex figure of Cromwell himself, who represented both the revolutionary overthrow of the old regime and the constraints of the rising bourgeoisie. This isn’t just about fixing footnotes; it’s about reclaiming the English Revolution from two centuries of distortion.

The Manufacture of a Bourgeois Cromwell

Jackie Eales demonstrates that the version of Cromwell familiar to popular memory is mostly a construct from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The commonly cited ‘warts and all” comment—often used as evidence of Cromwell’s supposed modernity—is in fact an eighteenth-century fabrication. Similarly, the well-known quip dismissing the Rump Parliament, “you have sat too long here… in the name of God, go!”, is not from the seventeenth century; it is a 1940 parliamentary remark by Leo Amery, aimed at Chamberlain, and taken from Carlyle’s 1845 edition.

Carlyle played a crucial role in shaping this ideological reconstruction. His edition, once seen as definitive, was created with considerable liberty — including reworded sections, added commentary, and even forged documents. Nonetheless, Carlyle’s portrayal of Cromwell evolved into the archetype for Victorian liberalism — portraying Cromwell as an early parliamentarian, a constitutional moderate, and a revolutionary whose actions could be seen as the nascent stages of bourgeois democracy.

Cromwell and the Manufacture of a Usable Past

Few figures in English history have undergone as prolonged an effort of ideological redefinition as Oliver Cromwell. This redefinition has never been purely academic; since the eighteenth century, it has served as a political tool: transforming a mid-seventeenth-century revolutionary leader into a figure that suits the agendas of subsequent ruling elites. The new Oxford edition of The Letters, Writings, and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell—comprehensive and rigorously faithful to the original documents—presents a direct challenge to this longstanding mythmaking. It urges us to view Cromwell not through the lens of Victorian liberalism nor as a caricature by twentieth-century reactionaries, but as a complex reflection of a society in the midst of revolutionary change.

To understand why Cromwell has been so frequently rewritten, it’s essential to consider the nature of the English Revolution itself. Marxist theory describes it as a bourgeois revolution expressed through religious means: the overthrow of feudal absolutism by a rising class whose ideological language was still tied to theology. The social forces that dismantled the monarchy, abolished the House of Lords, and executed Charles I could not clearly articulate their goals in secular, materialist terms. Instead, they relied on concepts of providence, divine reformation, and divine judgment. Cromwell, as the most skilled military and political leader of this movement, exemplified its contradictions: acting as a revolutionary, yet justified by divine providence; being radical in destruction but conservative in settlement.

Later generations found this complexity unacceptable. The ruling elite after 1688 needed a genealogy that supported its constitutional legitimacy. The English Revolution, with its regicide and republican experiment, was seen as an embarrassment—too radical, violent, and overtly destructive of monarchy. Cromwell had to be softened. The process began in the eighteenth century through anecdotal invention and culminated in the nineteenth century with Carlyle’s extensive yet biased edition of Cromwell’s writings. Carlyle’s Cromwell differed from the original documents; he was portrayed as a Victorian moral hero—characterful, sincere, and an early Liberal ideal. Carlyle altered passages, added commentary, and even included forged documents to craft a Cromwell who could be seen as an ancestor of bourgeois constitutionalism.

This was mythmaking used to reinforce class dominance. The revolutionary Cromwell—who saw regicide as divine will, dissolved parliaments when they opposed him, and prioritised divine commands over constitutional norms—did not align with Britain’s stable parliamentary system in the 19th century. Therefore, a new figure resembling Cromwell needed to be created: one who could be represented as a pioneer of modern liberty instead of a destroyer of the old order.

The twentieth century introduced its own distortions. During crises, Cromwell was frequently reinterpreted. Leo Amery’s 1940 attack on Chamberlain, with its faux quote “in the name of God, go!”, was not a genuine historical remark but a political tool. Cromwell was portrayed as a symbol of parliamentary strength, invoked to defend the constitutional order that his revolution had momentarily overturned. Meanwhile, reactionary historians crafted the opposite myth: portraying Cromwell as a proto-fascist dictator and a forerunner of modern tyranny. Both narratives catered to current agendas and obscured the real historical figure of Cromwell.

The new Oxford edition clearly departs from previous traditions by meticulously assembling the documents, thereby reestablishing Cromwell’s role within the revolutionary crisis that shaped him. The Cromwell presented here is neither a liberal hero nor a fascist villain but a figure influenced by the class forces of his era. His religious language is not indicative of personal eccentricity but represents the ideological framework through which the revolutionary bourgeoisie interpreted its struggles. His political actions—such as military victories, dissolutions of parliament, and constitutional experiments—mirror a class trying to dismantle feudal power while simultaneously fearing the radical potential of the popular forces that contributed to that transformation.

Ireland: The Colonial Violence of the Bourgeois Revolution

Victorian mythmaking never fully captured the history of Cromwell’s 1649 Irish campaign, and the new edition resists sanitisation. The documents affirm what Irish memory has always recognised: Drogheda and Wexford were massacres, not mere battle excesses. Resistance had already ceased before civilians and soldiers were killed. This exposes the limitations of the bourgeois revolution—while it toppled the English monarchy, it also carried out a colonial war marked by extreme brutality. The rising English bourgeoisie, fighting for political power domestically, also pursued imperial dominance internationally. The ideas of providence and a divine mission provided a convenient justification for the material reality: the expansion of English capitalism. Victorian liberalism could not accept this, and twentieth-century parliamentarianism avoided it altogether. The new edition does neither; instead, it restores the record to its full, uncomfortable clarity.

Why does this matter? Because historical mythmaking is never innocent. The transformation of Cromwell into a constitutional moderate was part of a broader ideological project: the rewriting of the English Revolution as a precursor to the stable parliamentary order that followed. This narrative obscures the revolutionary nature of the seventeenth century, erases the class struggle at its core, and transforms a moment of genuine social rupture into a comforting origin story for bourgeois rule.

Restoring Cromwell to history—stripped of Carlylean invention, Victorian sanitisation, and twentieth‑century distortion—is essential for understanding the English Revolution on its own terms. It reveals a society in transition, a class overthrowing feudal power, and a leader whose actions cannot be understood outside the revolutionary dynamics that shaped them.

What the Documents Reveal: Revolution in Religious Form

The Cromwell depicted in the documents isn’t the hero from Carlyle or the caricature of a proto-fascist dictator from the twentieth century. Instead, he is a more historically tangible figure: a revolutionary shaped by the tensions of a society shifting from feudalism to capitalism. Cromwell’s use of religious language was more than mere decoration; it was the ideological language through which the revolutionary bourgeoisie and their allies understood their fight. When Cromwell spoke of his early life as being amid spiritual “darkness,” or saw victories at Marston Moor, Dunbar, and Worcester as divine acts, he was expressing—using the only vocabulary at his disposal—the awareness of a class breaking away from the old order but struggling to articulate its goals in secular, materialist terms.

This is exactly why it is historically incorrect to try to link Cromwell to the tradition of liberal constitutionalism. He justified regicide as divine justice, contemplated the crown in spiritual terms, and prioritised God’s will over constitutional norms. Therefore, transforming him into a Whig predecessor ignores the revolutionary essence of his actions. The editors’ success lies in reestablishing Cromwell as a product of the revolutionary crisis—complex, providential, radical, and closely connected to the class forces he led.

Why Accuracy Matters: Reclaiming the Revolution

Correcting Carlyle’s distortions isn’t just antiquarian fussiness; it’s essential for reclaiming the true story of the English Revolution from bourgeois historiography. Each phase of Cromwell’s mythmaking—whether Walpole’s anecdote, Carlyle’s editorial choices, or Amery’s wartime rhetoric—served to reshape him to fit the ideological needs of the ruling class. As a result, Cromwell has been depicted variably as a democrat, tyrant, patriot, or proto-liberal, depending on the prevailing narrative.

The new edition breaks that cycle. It forces us back to the seventeenth century, to a revolutionary crisis whose central figure was neither a secular constitutionalist nor a simple despot, but a man formed by — and inseparable from — the religious, social, and class upheaval of his age. To understand Cromwell is to understand the English Revolution as a bourgeois revolution in religious form — radical in its destruction of feudal power, limited in its inability to transcend the ideological frameworks of its own class.

Priced at £190 per volume, this edition will primarily reside in university libraries. It features dense annotations and formidable scholarship. However, its importance extends well beyond its expected audience. By removing two centuries of ideological distortions, it repositions Cromwell within the revolution that shaped him—a complex figure marked by contradictions, providence, ruthlessness, and a tendency to resist sanitisation. For scholars of the English Revolution, it is essential. For those interested in how ruling classes craft influential narratives of the past, it offers profound insights.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Sources

• Cromwell, Oliver. The Letters, Writings, and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Vols. I–III. Ed. Andrew Barclay, Tim Wales, John Morrill, Elaine Murphy, Micheál Ó Siochrú, Jason Peacey, Joel Halcomb, Patrick Little, and David L. Smith. Oxford University Press, 2023.
• Carlyle, Thomas. Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches: With Elucidations. Chapman and Hall, 1845. (Important chiefly as an example of nineteenth‑century editorial intervention and mythmaking.)
• Walpole, Horace. Anecdotes of Painting in England. 1762–71. (Source of the invented “warts and all” anecdote.)
• Amery, Leo. House of Commons Speech, 7 May 1940. (Origin of the modern “in the name of God, go!” line falsely attributed to Cromwell.)
• Rushworth, John. Historical Collections. 1659–1701. (Contemporary documentary material on the Civil Wars and Interregnum.)
• Thurloe, John. A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe. 1742. (Key administrative and diplomatic papers from the Protectorate.)

Secondary Sources: Cromwell and the English Revolution

Modern Scholarship

• Morrill, John. Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution. Longman, 1990. (Essential for understanding Cromwell’s religious-political worldview.)
• Eales, Jackie. “The Myth of Cromwell.” History Today, Vol. 73, No. 3 (2023). (Concise account of the invention of Cromwellian myths.)
• Peacey, Jason. Print and Public Politics in the English Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 2013. (On the ideological construction of political figures in the 1640s–50s.)
• Reid, Kirsten. Cromwell’s War Machine: The New Model Army and the Revolution. Manchester University Press, 2021.
• Ó Siochrú, Micheál. God’s Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland. Faber & Faber, 2008. (The definitive account of Drogheda and Wexford.)
• Woolrych, Austin. Britain in Revolution, 1625–1660. Oxford University Press, 2002. (A comprehensive political narrative.)
• Smith, David L. Oliver Cromwell: Politics and Religion in the English Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Marxist and Materialist Historiography

• Marx, Karl. “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany.” 1851–52. (Foundational analysis of bourgeois revolutions; relevant for framing the English case.)
• Engels, Friedrich. The Peasant War in Germany. 1850. (On the ideological forms of early bourgeois revolutions.)
• Hill, Christopher.
  • The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin, 1972.
  • God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution. Penguin, 1970.
  • The English Revolution 1640. Lawrence & Wishart, 1940. (Hill remains indispensable for understanding the class dynamics and ideological contradictions of the revolution.)
• Manning, Brian. The English People and the English Revolution. Bookmarks, 1991. (A class analysis of the revolutionary process.)
• Rees, John. The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 1640–1650. Verso, 2016. (On the popular forces whose pressure shaped Cromwell’s actions.)
• Callinicos, Alex. The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx. Bookmarks, 1983. (Useful for framing bourgeois revolutions within Marxist theory.)

Mythmaking, Ideology, and Historical Memory

• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge University Press, 1983. (Framework for understanding Cromwell’s later ideological reconstruction.)
• Cannadine, David. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. Penguin, 2001. (On imperial ideology; relevant to Cromwell’s Irish campaign.)
• Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. University of Chicago Press, 1980. (Useful for analysing how figures like Cromwell are constructed in cultural memory.)
• Kelsey, Sean. “The Death of Oliver Cromwell.” Historical Journal, 1999. (On the political uses of Cromwell’s image after 1658.)

Archival and Documentary Collections

• British Library Manuscripts (Thurloe Papers, State Papers Domestic).
• National Archives (SP 18, SP 25, and Interregnum administrative records).
• Bodleian Library (Carte Manuscripts; Rawlinson MSS).
• Cambridge University Library (Morrill Papers; Cromwellian correspondence).

Suggested Further Reading for Marxist Analysis

• Trotsky, Leon. The History of the Russian Revolution. 1930. (For comparative revolutionary dynamics and the dialectic of leadership and class forces.)
• Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State. Verso, 1974. (On the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe.)
• Brenner, Robert. Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653

Professor John Morrill’s inaugural Barry Coward Memorial Lecture, delivered under the auspices of the Birkbeck Early Modern Society, was by any measure an impressive scholarly performance. Morrill is one of the most accomplished historians of the English Revolution working today, and his five‑volume edition of Cromwell’s writings — supported by a substantial Leverhulme grant — will now become the definitive textual resource for future scholarship. His tribute to Barry Coward was warm, sincere, and entirely fitting.

But Morrill’s lecture, and the monumental editorial project, also expose the deeper limits of contemporary Cromwell studies. It reveals a historiographical method that is technically rigorous yet politically anaemic; a scholarship capable of restoring Cromwell’s words with unprecedented precision while leaving the social and class content of the English Revolution fundamentally untouched.

From a Marxist perspective, Morrill’s method exemplifies the wider trend in bourgeois historiography: focusing on textual precision and individual agency, which masks the revolutionary forces of the 1640s and the social classes that shaped Cromwell. This essay presents a summary of Morrill’s lecture alongside a Marxist critique of its underlying historiographical approach.

Morrill’s Project: Restoring Cromwell’s Voice

Morrill has produced a much-needed scholarly project: a detailed, critically edited collection of Cromwell’s speeches and writings. Current editions—Carlyle’s romanticised 1845 compilation and Lomas’s 1904 revision—are full of errors, missing details, and editorial changes. Morrill’s team of eight editors produced the most accurate text yet by examining all manuscripts and printed editions, aiming to eliminate two centuries of inaccuracies.

The example he offered — two versions of Cromwell’s speech opening the Barebones Parliament highlights the issue. A 1654 version refers to “the day of the power of Christ,”. In contrast, a later edition softens this to “a day of the power of Christ,” subtly transforming Cromwell from an apocalyptic prophet to a devout statesman. Morrill contended that these modifications add up to a significantly changed perception of Cromwell. The project is undoubtedly valuable, as it aims to provide scholars with the most precise texts of Cromwell ever compiled. However, ensuring textual accuracy does not necessarily mean that the historical understanding will be equally precise.

The Fetish of Accuracy: A Technical Solution to a Political Problem

Morrill’s lecture consistently focused on the importance of “accuracy.” He pointed out Carlyle’s carelessness, Lomas’s slight improvement, and Abbott’s strong ideological stance. Morrill’s edition aims to address these issues. However, this focus on textual precision reveals a broader methodological belief: that understanding Cromwell depends on finding his “true” words. This approach reflects scholarly obsession — the idea that the authentic sentence will reveal the genuine Cromwell.

A Marxist perspective emphasises the importance of class struggle in understanding Cromwell’s words. Whether he referred to “the day of the power of Christ” or “a day” is less important than analysing the social forces behind his speech. The key questions are: what social interests motivated Cromwell’s language, and how did it serve revolutionary goals? Morrill’s method falls short because it views Cromwell’s speeches as isolated entities, ignoring their role as ideological expressions shaped by class interests.

Cromwell as a Figure Re‑Made to Suit Ruling‑Class Needs

Morrill recognised that each century has its own version of Cromwell—whether Carlyle’s Victorian hero, Abbott’s proto-fascist leader, or the moderate constitutional figure of the mid-century—each reflecting the ideological needs of its time. However, Morrill did not explore the deeper implication: Cromwell’s image is not merely misinterpreted but is intentionally constructed as a political tool. Bourgeois historiography repeatedly reimagines Cromwell to reinforce the ideological foundations of the modern British state. From a Marxist perspective, Cromwell cannot be viewed as a timeless “great man.” Instead, he must be seen as the political representative of an emerging bourgeois class whose interests called for the dismantling of feudal absolutism, the creation of a national market, the consolidation of capitalist property, and the suppression of plebeian democratic movements. This is the version of Cromwell that bourgeois historiography refuses to acknowledge—and thus remains invisible.

Against Revisionism: The Bourgeois Evasion of the English Revolution

For over forty years, “revisionist” Civil War scholarship has held sway in the British academic world. It claims to be objective, fact-based, and opposed to Whig history. However, it is actually the most politically cautious interpretation ever used to analyse the English Revolution. Its main accomplishment has been to undermine the idea of revolution itself—instead portraying a major historical turning point as merely a collection of local conflicts, religious feelings, and personal miscommunications.

Revisionism’s approach is straightforward: break down, remove politics, and dissolve distinctions. While earlier thinkers viewed history as a revolutionary clash between social orders, revisionists see only “multiple kingdoms,” “local contexts,” and “parish politics.” Where Marxists highlight the rise of the bourgeoisie and the fall of feudal absolutism, revisionists claim class is “anachronistic,” “over-systematised,” or simply “not evident in the sources.” Similarly, movements like the Levellers and Diggers, originally seen as democratic and proto-communist, are reinterpreted by revisionists as “pressure groups,” “agitators,” or “political minorities.”

The outcome is a historiography where events lack intentional causes, especially social ones. The English Revolution appears as a chain of accidents. Cromwell is seen as a man responding to crises. The New Model Army is viewed as a disciplinary issue. Ireland is considered a tragic misunderstanding. Radicalism is dismissed as mere noise. This is not genuine scholarship; it is ideological suppression.

Revisionism appeared in the late 20th century, coinciding with the British academy’s move away from social history, class analysis, and materialist views. It presents a reassuring story: the Civil War was not a revolution but just a “war of three kingdoms.” Its participants are seen not as representatives of social forces, but as individuals driven by religious differences. Its conclusion is not the end of feudalism but just a constitutional adjustment. Essentially, revisionism rejects the revolution to dismiss its repercussions.

It cannot acknowledge that the English Revolution was a bourgeois revolution. It cannot acknowledge that Cromwell was the political instrument of a rising class. It cannot acknowledge that plebeian movements represented the unfulfilled democratic content of the struggle. It cannot acknowledge that revolutionary violence was structurally necessary.

Instead, it presents a Cromwell who is psychologically nuanced but socially insubstantial, a Parliament that is complex in structure yet devoid of class distinctions, and a revolution that paradoxically isn’t truly a revolution. This is why revisionism has become so appealing to the modern academy: it sanitises history. It strips away the explosive elements of the 1640s—the overthrow of monarchy, the mobilisation of people with low incomes, the rise of democratic calls, and the development of capitalist social relations—and substitutes a politically neutral mosaic of “contexts.” A Marxist critique pierces through this illusion. The English Revolution was not a mistake, nor a local crisis, nor a religious conflict. It was the first major bourgeois revolution, and its contradictions—its radicalism, violence, and repression of democratic forces—mirror the conflicting interests of the class driving it. Revisionism fails to recognise this because it cannot accept it. Its goal isn’t to explain the revolution but to diminish its significance.

Ireland and the Politics of Sanitisation

The most insightful part of Morrill’s lecture focused on Ireland. He highlighted uncertainties in casualty numbers, questioned the reliability of Cromwell’s letters, and noted Parliament’s tendency to “tidy up” his words. He carefully differentiated between civilians killed in combat and those killed after surrender. While this stance of meticulous neutrality seems objective, it serves a political purpose by diverting attention from the underlying reality: the Irish campaign was an element of the brutal consolidation of a new bourgeois state.

The Drogheda massacre—regardless of how its details are reconstructed—was not merely a tragic mistake. It was a calculated act of terror executed by a revolutionary force whose triumph depended on dismantling the ancient Irish order. Morrill’s approach, by emphasising textual uncertainty, downplays the revolutionary violence central to the English bourgeois revolution.

Morrill’s approach exemplifies the broader shift towards revisionism in Civil War historiography. This perspective critiques the traditional Whig narrative of constitutional progress, replacing it with an equally ideological focus on local grievances, religious sensitivities, and individual agency. It breaks down the revolution into a series of contingencies, interprets class struggle through cultural anthropology, and views Cromwell as a psychologically intricate individual managing crises. Instead of seeing the revolution as driven by material forces, it portrays it as a patchwork of personal decisions. Conversely, a Marxist perspective argues that Cromwell was not merely contingent but a necessary outcome—shaped structurally by the decline of feudalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie.

The Erasure of Radical Movements

A key aspect of Morrill’s historiography is how it downplays radical movements. Levellers, Diggers, and Army agitators—the democratic and proto-communist groups of the 1640s—are only seen as “pressures” on Cromwell, not as independent class movements driven by their own historical logic. Cromwell’s suppression of these groups is viewed as political prudence, not as a reflection of his role in defending property and supporting the “gentlemen Independents.” This approach is not objective scholarship; it reduces plebeian politics to mere background noise, ideologically diminishing their significance.

The Cleaned Portrait Without the Canvas

Morrill concluded his lecture with a metaphor: Cromwell is like a Great Master painting that takes on a new life when cleaned and restored. The metaphor is insightful—Morrill restores the portrait but leaves the canvas untouched. The Cromwell he depicts is precise in text but stripped of political context, portraying him as a man of conscience rather than a revolutionary. A Marxist perspective argues that Cromwell’s significance lies not in his personality but in his role as the military and political representative of a rising bourgeoisie, both triggering and holding back revolution. Morrill’s approach cannot uncover this deeper, class-based understanding of Cromwell because it doesn’t address the class dynamics of the English Revolution.

Morrill’s edition will be invaluable, providing the most precise collection of Cromwell texts to date. However, it won’t answer the fundamental question Morrill asked: What do we truly know about Oliver Cromwell? To truly understand Cromwell, we must grasp the class forces that drove him to power, the economic changes that enabled the revolution, the social tensions that influenced his religious rhetoric, and the historical necessity that positioned him as the figurehead of a rising bourgeois class. Achieving this understanding requires a Marxist analysis—an approach that the bourgeois academy has largely avoided for decades. Morrill’s project cleaned the portrait. It will not reveal the painter.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Sources on Revisionism

• Fulbrook, Mary. “The English Revolution and the Revisionist Revolt.” Journal of Modern History. A foundational critique of revisionist approaches, surveying Conrad Russell, Kevin Sharpe, Paul Christianson, and others.
• Russell, Conrad. Parliaments and English Politics, 1621–1629. Oxford University Press, 1979. A key text in the revisionist dismantling of long-term social explanations.
• Russell, Conrad. The Origins of the English Civil War. Macmillan, 1973. The central revisionist statement rejecting class-based interpretations.
• Morrill, John. The Revolt of the Provinces: Conservatives and Radicals in the English Civil War, 1630–1650. Longman, 1980 (orig. 1976). A major revisionist work emphasising localism and provincial grievances.
• Sharpe, Kevin (ed.). Faction and Parliament: Essays on Early Stuart History. Oxford University Press, 1978. A revisionist collection emphasising political culture over social structure.
• Christianson, Paul. “The Causes of the English Revolution: A Reappraisal.” Journal of British Studies 15:2 (1976), 40–75. A revisionist attack on Marxist and Whig causal frameworks.
• Ashton, Robert. The English Civil War: Conservatism and Revolution 1603–1649. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978. Often grouped with revisionists for its scepticism toward long-term structural causes.

Responses to Revisionism

• Hexter, J. H. “Power Struggle, Parliament, and Liberty in Early Stuart England.” Journal of Modern History 50:1 (1978), 1–50. A rebuttal defending structural and ideological explanations.
• Hill, Christopher. “Parliament and People in Seventeenth-Century England.” Past & Present 92 (1981), 100–124. A Marxist counter-argument emphasising popular mobilisation.
• Rabb, T. K. “The Role of the Commons.” Past & Present 92 (1981), 55–78. A critique of revisionist minimisation of parliamentary radicalism.
• Hirst, Derek. “The Place of Principle.” Past & Present 92 (1981), 79–99. A defence of ideological and principled motivations against revisionist reductionism.

Marxist and Social-Historical Works

• Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin, 1972. The classic Marxist study of Levellers, Diggers, and plebeian radicalism.
• Hill, Christopher. The English Revolution 1640. Lawrence & Wishart, 1940. Foundational Marxist interpretation of the revolution as a bourgeois upheaval.
• Bernstein, Eduard. Cromwell and Communism: Socialism and Democracy in the Great English Revolution. Allen & Unwin, 1930. A pioneering Marxist analysis of radical democratic and proto-communist movements.
• Manning, Brian. The English People and the English Revolution. Heinemann, 1976. A major social-history rebuttal to revisionism, emphasising class mobilisation.
• Manning, Brian. The Far Left in the English Revolution. Bookmarks, 2006. A detailed study of radical class forces suppressed by Cromwell.
• Shaw, A. L. The Levellers. Longman, 1968. A key study of democratic radicalism within the New Model Army.

Historiographical Context

• Fulbrook, Mary. “The English Revolution and the Revisionist Revolt.” Journal of Modern History. Essential for situating revisionism within broader historiographical debates.
• Rosenberg, John S. “Toward a New Civil War Revisionism.” Journal of Modern History. Although focused on the American Civil War, it provides a comparative framework for understanding revisionist cycles in national historiography.

For nearly two decades, debate over slavery and capitalism in the United States has been shaped by the so-called “New History of Capitalism” (NHC), a loose group of scholars whose influence reflects less intellectual strength than the deep disorientation of contemporary bourgeois scholarship. Arising after the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of neoliberal triumphalism, the NHC has sought to offset its theoretical weakness through extensive empirical accumulation. Its central claim—that plantation slavery was integral to capitalist development—is correct, but it reaches that conclusion without grasping capitalism itself.

This is no accident. The NHC is a petty-bourgeois ideological formation rooted in academic middle layers whose outlook is marked by hostility to Marxism, suspicion of theory, and retreat into descriptive empiricism. Its scholars have produced vast archival detail yet remain unable to explain the structural relationship between slavery and capitalism. Their work reflects a wider crisis: the abandonment of historical materialism in the universities and the rise of identity politics, moralism, and methodological fragmentation.

David McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History enters at this moment of theoretical collapse. More than a contribution to slavery historiography, it directly challenges the petty-bourgeois drift of contemporary scholarship. It restores Marxist method to a field that has grown uncertain of its capacity to explain the world.

McNally counters long-standing caricatures by showing that Marx understood Atlantic plantation slavery as capitalist commodity production and the enslaved as a “chattel proletariat.” This is more than a small interpretive correction: it decisively refutes the Eurocentric view that capitalism is defined solely by free wage labour, a view that obscures its global, violent, and coercive development.

The Argument: A Systematic Reassertion of Historical Materialism

McNally’s book proceeds in two parts. First, through case studies of Richard Ligon’s account of Barbadian sugar production, George Washington’s role as an agrarian capitalist slaveholder, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s theory of colonial labour, it shows that plantation slavery bore the defining marks of capitalist production: production for world markets, systematic labour discipline, and constant pressure to raise productivity.

The second part shifts to political economy, showing how capital derived from slavery helped shape modern financial institutions, including the Bank of England, and later influenced the development of American capitalism. The conclusion is clear: slavery was not outside capitalism but structurally central to it.

McNally places his work within a “forgotten critical Marxist tradition” of C.L.R. James, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Sylvia Wynter, all of whom rejected the Eurocentric view that capitalism is defined solely by free labour. By reviving this tradition, he exposes the NHC’s theoretical bankruptcy: its attempt to explain capitalism without Marx and slavery without class analysis.

Where the Book Succeeds: Restoring Class Struggle to the Centre of the Narrative

The book’s strongest contribution is its analysis of enslaved resistance. Liberal historiography has often reduced rebellion, sabotage, and flight to moral testimony or narrative detail. Despite its empirical breadth, the NHC largely repeats this pattern, treating enslaved resistance as an outside disruption rather than a structural feature of capitalist production.

McNally breaks sharply with this approach by recasting enslaved resistance as labour struggle, structurally comparable to strikes, slowdowns, and collective bargaining. In doing so, he restores the enslaved to their proper place as historical agents contesting the conditions of production and reproduction. This is a genuinely original contribution that gives his theoretical framework real explanatory force. His prose is clear, forceful, and historically grounded; planter diaries, travel accounts, and slave narratives function not as ornament but as evidence of the lived reality of capitalist exploitation.

David McNally and the 1619 Project: Marxism Against the Petty‑Bourgeois Rewriting of History

David McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History appears at a moment of profound ideological confusion. Few examples reveal this more clearly than the rise of the 1619 Project, a political and cultural intervention embraced by parts of the media and academia as a definitive reframing of American history. In fact, it marks the culmination of a petty-bourgeois ideological turn: replacing historical materialism with racial essentialism, class analysis with moral narrative, and revolutionary perspective with political demoralisation.

Although not written as a direct reply to the 1619 Project, McNally’s book stands in sharp theoretical opposition to it. While the 1619 Project casts slavery as a story of racial continuity and national guilt, McNally emphasises the structural, global, and capitalist character of New World slavery. Rather than treating slavery as the permanent essence of American society, he locates it within the development of the capitalist mode of production—a system driven not by racial metaphysics but by profit, accumulation, and class domination. The contrast could hardly be sharper.

The 1619 Project: A Petty‑Bourgeois Politics of Race

The 1619 Project is not a serious historical intervention but a political project grounded in the outlook of the upper-middle-class layers that dominate contemporary cultural institutions. Its method replaces historical materialism with racial essentialism, presenting American history as an unbroken chain of racial oppression from the arrival of enslaved Africans to the present. This narrative serves clear ideological functions: it collapses class into race, erasing capitalist exploitation; substitutes moral condemnation for structural analysis, reducing history to a record of injustice rather than social forces; denies the revolutionary agency of the working class by portraying American society as permanently defined by racial hierarchy rather than class struggle; and aligns with the interests of affluent professional strata, who use racial discourse to claim moral authority while preserving their own class position.

The 1619 Project’s hostility to Marxism is deliberate. It reflects the political needs of a social layer threatened by genuine materialist analysis, which would expose the class basis of exploitation and the capitalist state’s role in sustaining inequality.

McNally’s Intervention: Restoring Marxism to the Debate

McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism directly challenges this ideological drift. His claim is not merely that slavery was linked to capitalism, a point the 1619 Project acknowledges only superficially, but that slavery was a form of capitalist production governed by the same structural imperatives that shaped wage labour. This distinction is decisive. Where the 1619 Project treats slavery primarily as a racial institution, McNally shows it was a capitalist institution driven by production for world markets, systematic labour discipline, relentless pressure to raise productivity, and integration into global circuits of finance and credit. By recovering Marx’s writings and the tradition of Du Bois, C.L.R. James, and Sylvia Wynter, McNally exposes the theoretical bankruptcy of approaches that reduce slavery to racial essence rather than analysing it as a capitalist relation.

Enslaved Resistance: Class Struggle, Not Racial Allegory

One of McNally’s key contributions is to recast enslaved resistance as labour struggle. This sharply contrasts with the 1619 Project, which presents resistance mainly as racial testimony: a moral counter-narrative rather than a structural feature of capitalist production. McNally instead restores the enslaved as historical agents engaged in class struggle, contesting the conditions of production and reproduction within capitalism. This is a fundamentally Marxist insight, and it is absent from the 1619 Project’s racial-moral framework.

Why the 1619 Project Cannot Explain Slavery

The 1619 Project cannot explain slavery because it cannot explain capitalism. Its framework is moral rather than material, racial rather than structural. It presents slavery as America’s original sin, not as a global capitalist institution embedded in world markets, finance, and imperial expansion. McNally, by contrast, shows that slavery was not an aberration but a central mechanism of capitalist accumulation; that the enslaved were not racial symbols but workers subjected to capitalist discipline; that the plantation was not simply a racial institution but a capitalist factory in the fields; and that resistance was not merely racial defiance but class struggle within a coercive labour regime. In short, McNally explains slavery because he explains capitalism; the 1619 Project explains neither.

Marxism Against Petty‑Bourgeois Revisionism

David McNally’s Slavery and Capitalism is more than a scholarly study; it is a necessary intervention in a historiographical field shaped by petty-bourgeois racial politics and theoretical fragmentation. Despite its cultural influence, the 1619 Project retreats from materialist analysis, recasting the history of slavery as a narrative of racial permanence. McNally’s book restores what that project cannot: the structural, global, and capitalist character of slavery; the agency of enslaved workers as participants in class struggle; and the indispensable role of Marxist theory in explaining the modern world’s development.

Where It Meets Resistance: The Petty‑Bourgeois Fear of Theory

The sharpest critique of McNally comes from a review in the Journal of Social History, which objects that McNally is engaged in theoretical reconstruction rather than conventional archival history. This criticism is revealing. It reflects the methodological conservatism of contemporary academic history, which has increasingly abandoned theory in favour of empiricism and treats conceptual clarity as a threat rather than a necessity.

The objection that “historians and theorists do different kinds of work” is not a methodological point but an ideological one. It expresses the petty‑bourgeois fear of totalising explanation — the fear that a coherent analysis of capitalism might expose the social foundations of exploitation and the class character of the academy itself.

The NHC’s refusal to engage with Marx is not an oversight. It is a political stance. It reflects the ideological position of a stratum that seeks to critique capitalism’s excesses while preserving its foundations, and that therefore cannot tolerate a genuinely materialist analysis.

McNally’s insistence on theoretical coherence is therefore not a flaw but a strength. It is a challenge to a historiographical field that has retreated from explanation into description and from analysis into moralism.

A Necessary Marxist Intervention in a Field Adrift

Slavery and Capitalism is not a conventional historical monograph. It is a theoretically ambitious and politically necessary intervention into a debate dominated by empiricism, identity politics, and methodological fragmentation. McNally demonstrates that Marx’s framework, properly understood, already contains the tools needed to explain the relationship between slavery and capitalism — tools the NHC has lacked and attempted to replace with descriptive accumulation.

Whether or not one accepts McNally’s full theoretical argument, his reframing of enslaved resistance as labour struggle is a major contribution. His recovery of a critical Marxist tradition is timely and essential. And his critique of the NHC exposes the limits of a historiography that has attempted to understand capitalism without Marx.

For scholars engaged in the debate over slavery and capitalism, McNally’s book is a serious, provocative, and necessary work — one that restores historical materialism to a field that has drifted far from it.

Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History was published by the University of California Press in September 2025.

Sources and Bibliography

I. Works by David McNally

• McNally, David. Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2025.
• McNally, David. Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance. Oakland: PM Press, 2011.
• McNally, David. Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique. London: Verso, 1993.
• McNally, David. Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Ideology and Politics. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.

II. Marx, Engels, and the Classical Marxist Tradition

• Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume I. Translated by Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1976.
• Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume II. London: Penguin, 1978.
• Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume III. London: Penguin, 1981.
• Marx, Karl. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. London: Penguin, 1973.
• Marx, Karl. Theories of Surplus Value. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969.
• Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Collected Works. 50 vols. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975–2004.
• Engels, Friedrich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. New York: International Publishers, 1972.

III. The Critical Black Marxist Tradition (Du Bois, James, Wynter)

• Du Bois, W.E.B. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880. New York: Free Press, 1998 (orig. 1935).
• Du Bois, W.E.B. The World and Africa. New York: Viking, 1947.
• James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1989 (orig. 1938).
• James, C.L.R. A History of Pan-African Revolt. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1969.
• Wynter, Sylvia. “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom.” CR: The New Centennial Review 3, no. 3 (2003): 257–337.
• Wynter, Sylvia. “Novel and History, Plot and Plantation.” In Savacou 5 (1971): 95–102.

IV. The New History of Capitalism (NHC)

Core Works

• Baptist, Edward E. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
• Beckert, Sven. Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Knopf, 2014.
• Beckert, Sven, and Seth Rockman, eds. Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.
• Johnson, Walter. River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
• Johnson, Walter. The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States. New York: Basic Books, 2020.
• Rosenthal, Caitlin. Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.

Representative Articles

• Rockman, Seth. “The Unfree Origins of American Capitalism.” Journal of the Early Republic 36, no. 3 (2016): 335–350.
• Beckert, Sven. “History of American Capitalism.” In Oxford Handbook of American Economic History, edited by Louis Cain et al., 1–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

V. The 1619 Project

Primary Texts

• Hannah‑Jones, Nikole, ed. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. New York: Random House, 2021.
• The New York Times Magazine. The 1619 Project. Special Issue, August 18, 2019.

Key Essays (Original Magazine Issue)

• Hannah‑Jones, Nikole. “Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written.”
• Desmond, Matthew. “To Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation.”
• Kendi, Ibram X. “The Anti‑Blackness of American Democracy.”
• Berry, Mary Frances. “How Segregation Shaped American Education.”

VI. Critiques of the 1619 Project

Marxist and Materialist Critiques

• Reed, Adolph. “The 1619 Project and the Racialization of Everything.” Catalyst 3, no. 4 (2020): 1–20.
• Reed, Adolph, and Walter Benn Michaels. “The Trouble with Disparity.” Jacobin, February 2020.
• WSWS Editorial Board. “The New York Times’ 1619 Project: A Racialist Falsification of History.” World Socialist Web Site, September 2019.
• North, David. The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History. Mehring Books, 2021.

Academic Critiques

• Wilentz, Sean. “A Matter of Facts.” The Atlantic, January 2020.
• Oakes, James. “The 1619 Project and the Origins of the Civil War.” Catalyst 4, no. 1 (2020): 1–30.
• McPherson, James M. Interview in WSWS, November 2019.
• Bynum, Victoria. “The 1619 Project and the Problem of Historical Truth.” Journal of the Civil War Era, 2020.

VII. Slavery, Capitalism, and Political Economy (General Scholarship)

• Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944.
• Blackburn, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery. London: Verso, 1997.
• Blackburn, Robin. The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights. London: Verso, 2011.
• Tomich, Dale. Through the Prism of Slavery: Labour, Capital, and World Economy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
• Holt, Thomas. The Problem of Race in the Twenty‑First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
• Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
• Morgan, Philip D. Slave Counterpoint. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
• Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Viking, 1985.

VIII. Political Economy, Finance, and Empire

• Arrighi, Giovanni. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso, 1994.
• Harvey, David. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. Industry and Empire. London: Penguin, 1968.
• Inikori, Joseph. Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

IX. Useful Archival and Primary Sources

• Ligon, Richard. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados. London, 1657.
• Wakefield, Edward Gibbon. A View of the Art of Colonisation. London: Parker, 1849.
• Washington, George. The Papers of George Washington. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
• Slave Narratives (WPA Federal Writers’ Project), Library of Congress.

Anna Keay’s The Restless Republic offers a lively account of Britain from 1649 to 1660. Still, beneath its refined language, it reveals a strong ideological stance: the suppression of the revolutionary aspects of the English Civil War and Interregnum. Keay writes not as an independent scholar but as a longstanding member of Britain’s heritage sector—“she writes from within the institutions that exist to manage and curate Britain’s official historical memory”—and her book aligns closely with the political goals of those institutions.

Her framing reveals a clear bias. The title, The Restless Republic, depicts the Interregnum as a pathological deviation — a nation unable to “settle” — suggesting it was a temporary disruption in the natural order. The subtitle, Britain Without a Crown, emphasises absence, implying that monarchy is the default state of political life and that its absence is a cosmic mistake. This approach is not objective history but ideological signalling.

The Revisionist Orthodoxy Repackaged for a Popular Audience

Keay’s work aligns well with the post-revisionist consensus that has dominated academic history since the 1970s. Revisionists like Conrad Russell, John Morrill, and Kevin Sharpe systematically challenged the Marxist interpretation put forward by Christopher Hill. Their core argument, now widely accepted, is that “there was no bourgeois revolution because there was no rising bourgeoisie” and that the Civil War was mainly an avoidable mistake, resulting from Charles I’s political errors.

Keay presents this orthodoxy confidently, as if she has never needed to defend it. Her story focuses on elite figures — Cromwell, Lambert, Monck, and the Rump — whose actions are seen as the main causes of history. The mass movements from below — the Levellers, Diggers, Fifth Monarchists — are shown only as interesting side notes or annoying disruptions. The class forces behind the revolution are ignored. This is intentional. It serves the ideological purpose of revisionism: to diminish the English Revolution’s revolutionary significance and portray it as merely a constitutional debate among aristocrats.

Keay vs Hill: Two Histories of the English Revolution, Two Visions of Britain

Anna Keay and Christopher Hill differ not just in their academic specialities but also in their perspectives on history: one emphasises Britain’s heritage institutions, while the other aligns with Marxist and revolutionary ideas. Comparing Keay and Hill illustrates that discussions about the English Revolution also reflect broader debates on Britain’s political identity and future.

Keay functions within Britain’s official historical memory framework; she writes from within the institutions that exist to manage and curate Britain’s official historical memory.” Her positions at English Heritage and the Landmark Trust place her directly in the system responsible for preserving, interpreting, and showcasing the national history to the public.

Hill was a Marxist historian influenced by the mid-twentieth-century intellectual movements, including the workers’ movement, anti-imperialist struggles, and global revolutions. He viewed the seventeenth century not as a mere heritage but as a conflict zone of class interests. In contrast, Keay’s perspective is conservative, focused on institutions, and seeks to restore traditions. Meanwhile, Hill’s outlook is revolutionary, grounded in materialist analysis, and internationalist.

Keay’s framing is notably negative. Her title, The Restless Republic, depicts the Interregnum as a period of instability, unrest, and a nation out of sync. The subtitle, Britain Without a Crown, highlights what is missing — the monarchy — suggesting that the natural order has been temporarily halted. In contrast, Hill’s framing is more positive. He views the 1640s–1650s as the first significant bourgeois revolution in European history. The execution of Charles I is seen not as an accident but as a pivotal historical event that marks a fundamental break.  “When the people execute their king… it has a profound revolutionary significance entailing a complete break with the feudal past.” While Keay perceives absence, Hill perceives emergence. Where Keay sees chaos, Hill recognises transformation. What Keay considers an interlude, Hill interprets as a revolution.

Keay’s narrative centres on elite figures—Cromwell, Lambert, Monck, and the Rump—while the common people are hardly more than background noise. The Levellers and Diggers are seen as curiosities rather than main actors. This approach exemplifies the revisionist view: history is shaped mainly by elite misjudgments, constitutional crises, and personal conflicts.

Hill’s work reestablishes agency among the masses, illustrating how the rising bourgeoisie, agrarian capitalists, and the “middling sort” challenged the feudal nobility. He highlights the Levellers, Diggers, Fifth Monarchists, and radical sects as manifestations of broader social forces unleashed during the revolution. Hill emphasises that understanding the English Revolution requires recognising the central role of class struggle. While Keay depicts England ruled from above, Hill depicts an England transformed from below. Keay inherits the revisionist dogma that the Civil War was essentially avoidable — a tragic accident caused by Charles I’s political incompetence and the breakdown of the “ancient constitution.”

Hill completely rejects this view. He sees the Civil War as the inevitable result of a deep social change: the emergence of capitalist relations within a collapsing feudal system. For him, the conflict was not accidental but a fundamental clash between two incompatible modes of production. While Keay views the Civil War as a constitutional failure, Hill considers it a necessary revolution.

Keay views the Restoration of 1660 as a return to rationality — a re-establishment of the natural order following a period of risky experimentation. This aligns with the classic Whig perspective: Britain’s strength lies in moderation, continuity, and steering clear of continental extremes. Conversely, Hill considers the Restoration a political compromise. The monarchy was reinstated, but only on conditions that maintained the core achievements of the revolution — primarily safeguarding bourgeois property. The old regime was not simply restored; it was made subordinate. Keay’s Restoration symbolises a homecoming, whereas Hill’s version is a settlement enforced by victorious social forces.

Keay’s work, like much of established historiography, plays a political role: to erase Britain’s revolutionary roots and promote the myth of peaceful, gradual change. As your document highlights, this tradition spans from the late seventeenth century through Macaulay to the present day. Trotsky’s critique of Macaulay also applies to Keay: “vulgarises the social drama… with platitudes that are sometimes interesting but always superficial.” Hill’s work takes a different stance: to emphasise the revolutionary nature of the English Revolution, to bring class struggle back to the forefront, and to link the bourgeois revolution of the seventeenth century with the socialist revolution of the future. Keay’s history offers comfort; Hill’s history invites challenge.

What Keay Cannot Admit: The Revolution Was Real.

The Marxist analysis, shaped by Marx, Engels, Trotsky, and Hill, views the 1640–1660 events as Europe’s first major bourgeois revolution. Keay cannot accept this because it would mean recognising that Britain’s modern state emerged not gradually but through a break—marked by civil war, regicide, and the overthrow of feudal absolutism.

Charles I’s execution was not merely a mistake but a historic act: “when the people execute their king after a solemn trial… it has a profound revolutionary significance entailing a complete break with the feudal past.” Consequently, no monarch remained securely on the throne until the late 19th century.

This act was driven by deep social forces. The growing bourgeoisie—merchants, capitalist farmers, and the “middling sort”—faced a feudal nobility whose economic base was deteriorating. The Civil War wasn’t just an internal elite dispute but a class struggle, with emerging economic forces dismantling the old political power.

The revolution sparked mass movements whose demands exceeded the cautious goals of the gentry. The Levellers called for democratic rights and the end of aristocratic privileges. The Diggers claimed the earth as a “common treasury.” Radical sects foresaw a complete overhaul of the social order. Cromwell harshly suppressed these movements—not because they lacked relevance, but because they threatened to push the revolution beyond the boundaries needed for capitalist property relations. This is the true drama of the English Revolution. Keay’s narrative fails to include it.

The Restoration Myth and the Sanitisation of Britain’s Past

Keay’s book continues a long tradition of sanitising Britain’s revolutionary origins. Since the late seventeenth century, the ruling class has preferred to frame its legitimacy around the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688—a peaceful palace coup—rather than the turbulent events of the 1640s. Macaulay, a prominent Whig historian, turned the revolution into a comforting myth of steady, peaceful progress. As Trotsky noted, “Macaulay vulgarises the social drama of the seventeenth century by obscuring the inner struggle of forces with platitudes.”

Keay modernises this tradition for the twenty-first century. The Interregnum is depicted as a tumultuous, unsuccessful experiment and a cautionary tale against radical shifts. The Restoration is seen more as a return to rationality rather than merely a political compromise that safeguarded the core achievements of the revolution, especially the preservation of bourgeois property. Her book isn’t mere crude propaganda; rather, it functions more subtly as an institutionally embedded narrative that renders revolution unthinkable by concealing it.

Why This Matters Today

The debate over how to interpret the English Revolution is more than just academic; it reflects a wider ideological campaign against the very idea of revolution. The revisionist shift of the 1970s happened alongside the suppression of workers’ struggles, the rise of postmodernism, and a move away from class analysis. Disputing the occurrence of a bourgeois revolution in seventeenth-century England is akin to denying the proletarian nature of 1917—it essentially removes revolution from history.

Keay’s book is a well-crafted addition to this topic. It reassures readers that radical breaks are deviations, that it is elites who shape history, and that overthrowing oppressive systems is neither essential nor beneficial. The goal isn’t to dismiss Keay’s work but to uncover its ideological underpinnings. The English Revolution should be recognised as a crucial moment in global history—a bourgeois revolution whose contradictions and successes highlight the route toward the socialist revolution, an ongoing goal of our era.

Margaret Willes’s The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn exemplifies more than just a flawed book; it highlights a broader intellectual decline in modern historiography. A retreat from social analysis characterises this decline, the abandonment of class as a key historical category, and the transformation of history into a refined part of the heritage industry. Willes’s work serves as yet another instance of a widespread trend in academia and publishing—portraying history as a lifestyle rather than an analytical discipline.¹

The book’s premise is simple: Pepys and Evelyn were curious individuals and keen observers of Restoration England, with diaries that provide charming glimpses into a vibrant era. While this follows the typical bourgeois-antiquarian pattern, it is also historically unjustifiable.

Pepys and Evelyn lived “through and after the greatest social upheaval England had ever experienced.”² They were not mere floating personalities in a timeless Restoration scene. Instead, they were actors—though minor—who revealed much in the aftermath of the English bourgeois revolution. To dismiss them as eccentric hobbyists, as Willes does, undermines their historical significance and reduces the Restoration to a depoliticised space of wigs, gardens, coffee houses, and domestic trivia. This shift is more than an interpretive mistake; it is an act of ideological shaping.

The Academic Abdication: Class Removed, Revolution Denied

Modern historians have mostly set aside the Marxist ideas that once fuelled serious research on the 17th century. Today, Christopher Hill’s work—often seen as outdated by many scholars—still stands as the only comprehensive framework for understanding that era. Hill showed that the mid-17th-century crisis dismantled one social class’s dominance and installed another.³ This is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of historical fact.

Yet Willes, like her peers, writes as though the English Revolution never occurred. The Civil War becomes background noise. The Commonwealth is reduced to a curiosity. The Restoration is treated as a return to normality rather than a class compromise forced upon a frightened bourgeoisie. The Glorious Revolution is barely acknowledged as the culmination of capitalist consolidation.⁴ This is not ignorance. It is avoidance.

Pepys and Evelyn: Not Curiosities, but Class Representatives

Pepys was not a gossiping flâneur. He was a bureaucrat of the capitalist state. His diary is saturated with the machinery of empire—shipbuilding, naval contracts, colonial administration. As the accompanying document notes, this was “the apparatus of a nascent capitalist state projecting its power across the globe.”⁵ Pepys’s rise through the Admiralty reflects the increasing importance of administrative competence in a society transitioning from feudal personal rule to capitalist state rationality.

Pepys exemplifies what Ellen Meiksins Wood has described as the “political form of capitalist social relations,” in which the early modern state becomes increasingly central to the organisation of economic life.⁶ His diary reveals the emergence of bureaucratic rationality, contract management, and logistical planning—key features of the developing capitalist state.

Evelyn was more than just a gentleman gardener; he was an innovative scientist whose Sylva was created to fulfil the navy’s timber needs. His interests in pollution, architecture, and horticulture mirrored the bourgeoisie’s rationalist ideals. As a Royal Society member, he played a key role in shaping bourgeois science. Engels recognised this well: contemporary science arose from the breakdown of the medieval worldview under the pressure of capitalist progress.⁷ Willes perceives the Royal Society as a charming assembly of inquisitive individuals, reflecting the commonplace liberal view. However, in actuality, the Society served as a tool for maintaining class dominance. Its focus on empirical research, experimentation, measurement, and progress aligned with the interests of a growing capitalist elite. Fields such as navigation, metallurgy, ballistics, forestry, and colonial mapping were not merely genteel hobbies but the technical backbone of capitalist growth.⁸ To present the Royal Society as an apolitical intellectual salon is to falsify its historical function.

Bourgeois Antiquarianism: The Ideology of Contemporary History Writing

Willes’s book exemplifies “bourgeois antiquarianism.”⁹ This is not simply a methodological flaw; it is an ideological stance. It is the refusal to acknowledge that history is shaped by class struggle. It is the displacement of social conflict by personality, of revolution by anecdote, of material forces by domestic interiors.

The World Socialist Website (WSWS) has criticised this trend repeatedly, most recently in its appraisal of Lucy Worsley, whose work “consistently displaces class antagonism, economic crisis, and mass political struggle, fixating on monarchs, courtiers, domestic interiors and historical cosplay.”¹⁰ Willes belongs to the same school: history as entertainment, history as escapism, history as depoliticised spectacle. This is not accidental. It reflects the ideological needs of the present bourgeois order, which seeks to naturalise itself by erasing the revolutionary processes that created it.

The Academic and Media Establishment: A Catalogue of Evasion

Let us speak plainly. The contemporary historical establishment has abandoned the English Revolution. It has abandoned class analysis. It has abandoned materialism. It has abandoned the very concept of historical causality. Worsley’s output—generously funded, heavily promoted, and ever-present—embodies the essence of bourgeois-antiquarian kitsch. As the WSWS pointed out, her work repeatedly shifts focus away from class conflict, economic crises, and large-scale political struggles, instead emphasising monarchs, courtiers, domestic settings, and historical cosplay.¹¹ Willes’s book belongs to precisely this tradition: history as costume drama. Other historians follow a similar path. One being David Starky.

Starkey’s extensive career has centred on the idea that history is primarily shaped by monarchs, courtiers, and individual personalities. He is widely known for his disdain for social history. His impact has been damaging, as he contributed to fostering an intellectual climate where a book like Willes’s could be published without shame.¹² Antonia Fraser’s Restoration biographies are elegant but politically vacuous. They treat the 17th century as a theatre of personalities rather than a battleground of classes. Her approach has shaped public expectations of the period, encouraging precisely the depoliticised reading Willes reproduces.¹³ Simon Schama stands out as the most polished in the group, but his work ultimately portrays a liberal-bourgeois narrative that highlights continuity, compromise, and national identity. His perspective on the English Revolution is somewhat vague and sentimental, and it sidesteps class analysis.¹⁴ He has helped normalise the idea that the Revolution was a cultural moment rather than a social rupture.

These historians are not purely neutral chroniclers but ideological architects. Their influence has cultivated a cultural setting in which the English Revolution is either minimised or overlooked, thereby enabling Pepys and Evelyn to be seen as charming eccentricities rather than as representatives of a burgeoning class consolidating its authority.

The shift from viewing history as heritage is more than a cultural trend; it’s a political move. When historians avoid addressing class issues, they make the past incomprehensible and the present fixed. This creates a world where social conflicts vanish, revolutions are unthinkable, and the bourgeoisie seems timeless. Pepys and Evelyn become mere charming curiosities instead of symbols of a class whose victory transformed England and established modern capitalism. Willes’s book isn’t just lacking; it reflects a wider intellectual surrender.

Restoring History to History

It is time to say openly what many historians privately acknowledge: the field has been intellectually captured by a bourgeois‑antiquarian sensibility that is hostile to social analysis and allergic to class. The English Revolution has been domesticated. Pepys and Evelyn have been trivialised. The Restoration has been aestheticised.

A Marxist critique restores what Willes and her peers omit: class, revolution, contradiction, and the emergence of the capitalist state. Pepys and Evelyn were not eccentric diarists. They were functionaries and intellectuals of a class consolidating its power after a revolutionary upheaval.

Their diaries are not curiosities. They are instruments of history. Contemporary historians who refuse to confront this reality are not writing history. They are producing ideology.

Footnotes

1. For the concept of “heritage history,” see Robert Hewison, The Heritage Industry (London: Methuen, 1987).
2. Previous Draft, p. 2.
3. Christopher Hill, The English Revolution 1640 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940), 7.
4. J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725 (London: Macmillan, 1967).
5. Previous Draft p. 3.
6. Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism (London: Verso, 1999).
7. Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature (1883).
8. Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
9. Previous Draft p. 4.
10. WSWS, “Lucy Worsley and the Politics of Heritage History,” accessed 2024.
11. Ibid.
12. See David Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII (London: Vintage, 2002).
13. Antonia Fraser, King Charles II (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979).
14. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: The British Wars 1603–1776 (London: BBC Books, 2001).