England's mid-17th century revolution resulted in the triumph of the protestant ethic—the ideology of the propertied class—but there threatened another, quite different, revolution. In this 1972 history, Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, and the Levellers, unpacking the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them. Encapsulating a turbulent time, Hill discusses class relations, the outbursts of sexual freedom and deliberate blasphemy, and the great imaginative creations of John Milton and John Bunyan.