ABSTRACT
In The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution, Christopher Hill set out to examine the radical social and theological ideas of the lower classes during the English Revolution. The work’s key secondary ideas examine the reasons why the radical revolutionaries failed: the strength of the Protestant ethic, and their own ideological inflexibility. The ideas of the Puritan radicals, Hill argues, were entirely opposed to the Protestant ethic. The concerted effort to preach and impose the capitalist and individualistic ideas of the Protestant ethic was in clear contrast to the infighting and divisions among the radicals. The role of women in the radical tradition was a little overlooked in The World Turned Upside Down, even if those who have expanded on the subject acknowledge the work Hill did, and credit him with encouraging them to explore the area in more depth.
