219000

9780300059908

Fire from Heaven Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century

Fire from Heaven Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century
$48.64
$3.95 Shipping
  • Condition: New
  • Provider: LightningBooks Contact
  • Provider Rating:
    85%
  • Ships From: Multiple Locations
  • Shipping: Standard, Expedited (tracking available)
  • Comments: Fast shipping! All orders include delivery confirmation.

seal  
$2.47
$3.95 Shipping
List Price
$25.00
Discount
90% Off
You Save
$22.53

  • Condition: Very Good
  • Provider: BooksRun Contact
  • Provider Rating:
    96%
  • Ships From: Philadelphia, PA
  • Shipping: Standard, Expedited
  • Comments: Ship within 24hrs. Satisfaction 100% guaranteed. APO/FPO addresses supported

seal  

Ask the provider about this item.

Most renters respond to questions in 48 hours or less.
The response will be emailed to you.
Cancel
  • ISBN-13: 9780300059908
  • ISBN: 0300059906
  • Publication Date: 1994
  • Publisher: Yale Univ Pr

AUTHOR

Underdown, David

SUMMARY

The town is Dorchester in Dorset; the time the beginning of the seventeenth century. Two hundred years before Hardy disguised it as Casterbridge, Dorchester was a typical English country town, of middling size and unremarkable achievements. But on 6 August 1613 much of it was destroyed in a great conflagration, which its inhabitants regarded as a 'fire from heaven', and which was the catalyst for the events described in this book. Over the next twenty years, a time of increasing political and religious turmoil all over Europe, Dorchester became the most religiously radical town in the kingdom, deeply involved, emotionally, with the fortunes of the Protestants in the Thirty Years War, and horrified by the Stuart flirtation with Spain. It was, after all, barely a generation since the defeat of the Great Armada. David Underdown traces the way in which the tolerant, paternalist Elizabethan town oligarchy was quickly replaced by a group of men who had a vision of a godly community in which power was to be exercised according to religious commitment rather than wealth or rank. They succeeded, briefly, in making Dorchester a place that could boast systems of education and of assisting the sick and needy nearly three hundred years in advance of their time. The town achieved the highest rate of charitable giving in the country. It had ties of blood as well as faith with many of those who sailed to establish similarly godly communities in New England. But the author's gaze is never focused narrowly on the local: he skillfully sets the story of Dorchester in the context both of national events and of what was going on overseas. This parallel vision of the crisis that led to the English Civil Warand of the incidence of the war itself opens fresh perspectives. The book's most remarkable achievement, however, is the re-creation, with an intimacy unique for an English community so distant from our own, of the lives of tUnderdown, David is the author of 'Fire from Heaven Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century', published 1994 under ISBN 9780300059908 and ISBN 0300059906.

[read more]

Questions about purchases?

You can find lots of answers to common customer questions in our FAQs

View a detailed breakdown of our shipping prices

Learn about our return policy

Still need help? Feel free to contact us

View college textbooks by subject
and top textbooks for college

The ValoreBooks Guarantee

The ValoreBooks Guarantee

With our dedicated customer support team, you can rest easy knowing that we're doing everything we can to save you time, money, and stress.