Well reasearched book that delves deeps into history, Sometimes it was hard for me to follow, so I would probably recommend to be familiar with the topic, at least generally.

This was a great history book. I read it all in one day. I learnt so much and it was explained well. It was so interesting that there was so many ever changing ways of classing people. I especially found it interesting learning about the children of Lords especially if the only living child was a female. It was a quite shocking read in some places. It really opened my eyes to how bad the systems were back in history. It was rather shocking learning about lands and rent paid or not paid in some cases. This history was split into smallish chapters each looking at a specific point. I thought it was great that after each the references were there. Although if your using text to speech like me you would need to stop and start it unless you like references. 

I thought the author did a brilliant job at getting his points across in a really interesting well researched way. 

Many thanks to the author and publishers for creating this great history book.

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones,Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/the-london-revolution-1643-1643-by-michael-sturza-independent-author-4-stars either under my name or ladyreading365

I'm not the right reader for this book. I think you'd need to have at least some general knowledge of England and how things work in order to follow. Or at least knowledge of a similar structure. I tried but I was lost in the politics and religion.

Informative, well-researched and well-written; Sturza provides the reader with both a comprehensive and a detailed account of the London Revolution and the facta that led to it.

Having encountered and enjoyed, via Austin Woolrych’s masterly work ‘Britain in Revolution 1625-1660, something rather more thoroughgoing than the potted version of the Civil War most of us encountered at school or in TV documentaries I was intrigued by the alternative perspective that Michael Sturza’s work might offer. Being neither as detailed an account, nor covering the same period as Woolrych, it is not easy to compare the two works, so this review instead focuses on strengths and weaknesses of Sturza’s analysis as perceived by this reader.

In the first instance, Sturza deserves some credit for setting out a readable narrative of the period he covers. It is an easy read that grabs the reader’s interest and attention and is richly endowed with footnotes and references for further study. His writing style is crisp and the analysis is set out under readily understandable themes.

However, for this reader at least, Sturza’s philosophical and political convictions lead him to focus on a need to ‘prove’ that a Marxist analysis is the only true prism through which to analyse and understand the making of the English Civil War. This is a fatal error for a historian, who should be the detective teasing out the facts as supported by contemporaneous evidence rather than an advocate for one or other philosophical gloss on the past. These errors are most glaring when he gets close to blaming one set of actors for not following the line that a true revolutionary would take or blaming another set of actors for ‘betraying’ the true revolutionaries. As history unfolds events happen, and one or other key sets of players seek advantage or survival by their actions, rather than acting out a political paradigm. Sturza’s seeming belief in historical analysis as a zero sum game is also much in evidence as he seeks to reinforce his own theories by personal insult and rebuke to those historians who do not share his historical weltanschauung.

Despite these reservations this is a book I would strongly recommend - in the first case because of its skilfully told narrative history, and in the second because other readers may find Sturza’s analysis more compelling. After all, it is rare that a ‘final’ view of a particular aspect of history remains the standard accepted interpretation and we should all be open to alternative approaches.

thank you to BooksGoSocial for providing me with an ARC through NetGalley!

Admittedly, I am not a scholar and was not familiar with the events that are covered in this book. That being said, I am a lifelong learner and was thrilled to get the chance to read this incredibly well researched book and learn more about the times.

As I was reading, I couldn’t help thinking about and making comparisons to current events and conversations that are happing in the US. You know what they say, history repeats itself.

It did take me a bit of time to read this book solely because it took me a few rereads of passages to fully get the scope of events. Overall, incredibly well written, full of research, well supported points, and a fairly easy to navigate text. Definitely recommend to anyone interesting in learning more about class structures, the degree to which politics and economics are entwined, and just how influential this period of revolution in London was and continues to be.

For those interested in class history or British history, this is a wonderful find. It offers deep insights into a specific period, which has not been covered extensively in many traditional historical accounts. Careful research is evident and I found myself delving into the source material to find out more. I wonder how many readers will find themselves analysing what lessons society has and has not learned since the events covered in this book.

This book offers a comprehensive and detailed account on the causes that led to the 1640 London Revolution.
Through Class differences, capitalism, religion, monarchy and parliament relations, we get an insight of the slowly emerging internal and external conflicts of the city.
Each chapter begins with a quote and we get so many references from other works for those who want to further their knowledge.
It shows that the author put a great effort into searching and combining the sources of this historical work.