LITFEST: Jonathan Healey (Catch-up)

The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England 

In conversation with Clare Egan

‘The most entertaining general history of seventeenth-century England I have read’ —Tom Holland 

At the beginning of the 17th century, English politics centred on the king and the royal court. Ninety per cent of the population lived in the countryside, the vast majority were illiterate, and famine and plague were regular scourges. By the turn of the 18th century, a new world had arisen. A world more familiar to our own: parliamentary politics, thriving arts and culture and even an embryonic welfare state. How was the course of history changed so radically? 

From raw politics to religious divisions, civil wars to witch trials, plague to press freedoms, The Blazing World is the story of a strange but fascinating century. Drawing on vast archives, Jonathan Healey portrays the lives not just of public figures but of ordinary people to illuminate a revolutionary society that forged a new world. And his story starts here in the north-west at Cartmel Priory. 

‘This is a wonderful book, exhaustively researched, vigorously argued and teeming with the furious joy of 17-century life’ —The Times 

Jonathan Healey is a historian of the 16th and 17th centuries. He writes history from the bottom up, focusing on ordinary people – their lives, loves, culture and politics. Born In Leeds and growing up in Lancaster, he is Associate Professor in Social History at the University of Oxford. 

Clare Egan is a Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at Lancaster University.