Miracles and the Pulp Press During the English Revolution Book

How did ordinary people, caught up in the violent political and social dislocation of the English Revolution, perceive it? This book attempts an answer through a close study of some 500 newsbooks and pulp publications produced from 1640 to 1660. Like "The Great Cat Massacre" and "The Cheese and the Worms", this work enters the world of enchanted belief, superstition, folk religion and magic. Friedman investigates why Englishmen outside Parliamentary circles were only incidentally concerned with the political, economic and religious questions that have so preoccupied scholars of the period, and why instead, the bestselling issues concerned witches, prodigies, apparitions, divine curses, the re-admittance of Jews to England and an obsession with converting the Turks to Christianity. For the great majority of people the period seems to have caused an upswelling of credulous superstition and bizarre prophecy, rather than the radicalization often assumed. A picture emerges of a frightened, confused society. Friedman examines, too, the Puritan "battle for morality", the attempts to combat ale-drinking, prostitution, pornography and the new fascination with marijuana, and how these issues became entangled in popular assessments of the revolution. Finally, by relating all these concerns to the popular astrological and prophetic literature of the day, the author provides convincing answers to why so many Englishmen ultimately greeted the return of Charles II with joy and relief.Read More