50 years of Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down
Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down was first published 50 years ago in 1972 and remains in print.
Hill was one of the Marxist historians, along with E P Thompson and John Saville who quit the Communist Party in 1956. While associated with the new left Hill did not become a leading figure and was not associated with any left tendency after his departure from the CPGB. Rather he became Master at Balliol College Oxford, a senior academic position.
He researched and wrote over many years on the English Revolution of the 1640s and 1650s and twenty years after his death remains a significant figure in this area.
The World Turned Upside Down had a particular focus. Hill looked at those groups who prosperity often regarded and regards as extremists and even lunatics. The Levellers, the Diggers, the Ranters, the Seekers. He makes the point that in the 1640s and into the 1650s there was in England a freedom to speak and publish that had not existed before and arguably has never existed again.
In particular there was considerable opposition to the rising Protestant work ethic which with the Restoration in 1660 won the battle of theory and practice and remains victorious. Hill argues that while historical details don’t change, understandings and interest in them does. Hence those who opposed the rise of capitalism at the beginning still have a lot to say to anti-capitalists 360 years on
Leave a Reply