Reassessing Radicalism in a Traditional Society: Two Questions

Abstract

Beginning with the problem of the appropriate language in which to discuss the aspiration to transform the nature of rule, Chapter 3 moves on to explore three aspects of the historiographical challenge. First, is the nature—institutions, procedures and processes—of rule and this raises the question of the historiography of the state. Second, the relationship between government and society is crucially significant in a period of profound socio-political upheaval. Third, the nature of society and the mechanism and/or cultures which can effectively govern it will figure in radical transformative responses to them. Each of these dimensions is shown to have a contested history. But, using what appears to be an emerging consensus on all three, this chapter explores three case studies—the Levellers, Gerrard Winstanley and James Harrington—to suggest fresh ways of reassessing them.