Christopher Hill (historian)
Christopher Hill | |
|---|---|
| Notable students | Brian Manning Partha Sarathi Gupta[1] |
| Influenced | Ervand Abrahamian[2] |
John Edward Christopher Hill (6 February 1912 – 23 February 2003) was an English
Early life and education
Christopher Hill was born on 6 February 1912,
He
Australian author Paul Monk has written that Hill was a Soviet spy.[5]
Early academic career
After graduating he became a
War service
Following the outbreak of the
Later academic career and politics
Hill returned to
Hill was becoming discontented with the lack of democracy in the Communist Party.[4] However, he stayed in the party after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. He left in the spring of 1957 after one of his reports to the party congress was rejected.[3]
After 1956 Hill's academic career ascended to new heights. His studies in 17th-century English history were widely acknowledged and recognised. His first academic book, Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament,
Many of Hill's most notable studies focused on 17th-century English history. His books include Puritanism and Revolution (1958), Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (1965 and revised in 1996), The Century of Revolution (1961), Anti-Christ in 17th-century England (1971) and The World Turned Upside Down (1972).
Hill retired from Balliol in 1978, when he took up a full-time appointment for two years at the Open University. He continued to lecture from his home at Sibford Ferris, Oxfordshire.
In Hill's later years he lived with Alzheimer's disease and required constant care.[9] He died of cerebral atrophy in a nursing home in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, on 23 February 2003.[3]
Personal life
Hill married Inez Waugh (née Bartlett) on 17 January 1944. Inez Hill, then 23, was the daughter of an Army officer, Gordon Bartlett, and the ex-wife of Ian Anthony Waugh. The Hills' marriage broke down after ten years. Their only child, their daughter, Fanny, drowned while holidaying in Spain in 1986.[3]
Hill's second wife was Bridget Irene Mason (née Sutton),[9] whom he married on 2 January 1956. She was the ex-wife of Stephen Mason, a fellow Communist and historian. Their daughter Kate died in a car accident in 1957. They had two other children: Andrew (born 1958) and Dinah (born 1960).[3]
Selected works
- The English Revolution, 1640 (1940, 3rd ed. 1955), )
- Lenin and the Russian Revolution (1947), ISBN 0-14-013535-9(1971, 1972, 1993 reprints)
- Economic Problems of the Church: From Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament (1956), ISBN 0-586-03528-1(1971 reprint)
- Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century (1958), ISBN 0-7126-6722-9(2001 reprint)
- The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714 (1961, 2nd. ed. 1980), ISBN 0-17-712002-9
- Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (1964), ISBN 0-7126-6816-0(2003 reprint)
- Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (1965, rev. 1997), ISBN 0-19-820668-2
- Reformation to Industrial Revolution: A Social and Economic History of Britain, 1530–1780 (1967, rev. ed. 1969), ISBN 0-14-020897-6
- God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (1970), ISBN 0-297-00043-8
- Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England (1971, rev. ed. 1990), ISBN 0-86091-997-8
- The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (1972), ISBN 0-85117-025-0
- Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England (1974, rev. ed. 1991), ISBN 0-300-05044-5
- Milton and the English Revolution (1977), ISBN 0-571-10198-4
- The World of the Muggletonians (1983), ISBN 0-85117-226-1
- The Experience of Defeat: Milton and Some Contemporaries (1984), ISBN 0-571-13237-5
- The Collected Essays of Christopher Hill (3 vols.)
- Writing and Revolution in 17th Century England (1985), ISBN 0-7108-0565-9
- Religion and Politics in 17th Century England (1986), ISBN 0-7108-0507-1
- People and Ideas in 17th Century England (1986), ISBN 0-7108-0512-8
- Writing and Revolution in 17th Century England (1985),
- A Turbulent, Seditious, and Factious People: John Bunyan and His Church, 1628–1688 (1988), ISBN 0-394-57242-4
- A Nation of Change and Novelty: Radical Politics, Religion and Literature in Seventeenth-Century England (1990), ISBN 0-415-04833-8
- The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (1992), ISBN 0-7139-9078-3
- Liberty Against The Law: Some Seventeenth-Century Controversies (1996), ISBN 0-14-024033-0
Notes
- TheGuardian.com. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
- ^ Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi (20 April 2017), "Iran's Past and Present: Why has the History of Iran's Left been Erased?", Jacobin, retrieved 9 December 2017
- ^ required.)
- ^ a b c d e "Obituary: Christopher Hill". The Guardian. 26 February 2003. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
- ^ "Christopher Andrew and the Strange Case of Roger Hollis - Quadrant Online". quadrant.org.au. 1 January 1970. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
- ISBN 0860914569.
- ^ "No. 34995". The London Gazette (Supplement). 15 November 1940. pp. 6621–6625.
- ^ "No. 35360". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 November 1941. p. 6830.
- ^ required.)
References
- Adamo, Pietro, "Christopher Hill e la rivoluzione inglese: itinerario di uno storico", pp. 129–158 from Societá e Storia, volume 13, 1990.
- Clark, J. C. D., Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
- Davis, J. C., Myth and History: the Ranters and the Historians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
- Eley, Geoff and Hunt, William (editors), Reviving the English Revolution: Reflections and Elaborations on the Work of Christopher Hill, London: Verso, 1988.
- Fulbrook, Mary, "The English Revolution and the Revisionist Revolt", pp. 249–264 from Social History, volume 7, 1982.
- Hexter, J. H., "The Burden of Proof", Times Literary Supplement, 24 October 1975.
- Hobsbawm, Eric, "'The Historians Group' of the Communist Party" from Rebels and Their Causes: Essays in Honor of A. L. Morton, edited by Maurice Cornforth, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1978.
- Kaye, Harvey J., The British Marxist Historians: an introductory analysis, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984.
- Morrill, John, "Christopher Hill", pp. 28–29 from History Today volume 53, issue 6, June 2003.
- Pennington, D. H.and Thomas, Keith (editors), Puritans and Revolutionaries: essays in seventeenth-century history presented to Christopher Hill, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
- Pennington, Donald, "John Edward Christopher Hill", in British Academy, Proceedings of the British Academy: Volume 130: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows, IV, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 23–49.
- Richardson, R. C., The Debate on the English Revolution Revisited, London: Methuen, 1977.
- Samuel, Raphael "British Marxist Historians, 1880–1980", pp. 21–96 from New Left Review, volume 120, March–April 1980.
- Schwarz, Bill, "'The People' in History: the Communist Party Historians' Group, 1946–56" from Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics, edited by Richard Johnson, London: Hutchinson, 1982.
- Underdown, David, "Radicals in Defeat", New York Review of Books, 28 March 1985.
External links
- "The Good Old Cause: An Interview with Christopher Hill" by Lee Humber and John Rees, International Socialism, 56 (1992).
- "Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution – In Honor of Christopher Hill 1912–2003", Workers Vanguard (2003)
- "Christopher Hill: Obituary", The Times, 26 February 2003
- Hunt, Tristram. "Back When It Mattered", The Guardian, 5 March 2003
- Manning, Brian. "The Legacy of Christopher Hill" Archived 28 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, International Socialism (2003)
