The causes of the English civil war have provoked fierce controversy amongst historians ever since the seventeenth century. The period is still one which matters to people, one over which they take sides. Such an enormous amount of work is published on the civil war that it is impossible for non-specialists to keep up with debates, hence the value of this synthesis.

This book is intended as a guide and introduction to this massive outpouring of scholarship, including discussion of revisionist and post-revisionist work. It is a vigorous overview which seeks to focus sharply on original recent approaches. It examines English developments in a broader British and European context, and explores current debates on the nature of the political process and the divisions over religion and politics.

Finally, it analyses controversial attempts to set the civil war in a social context, and to connect social change to broad cultural cleavages in England.