Ehud's Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution (review)

Abstract

Ehud's Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution is an ambitious, witty and provocative book. It is as much a polemical attack on strands in contemporary scholarship as an account of radical action in the English Revolution, for Holstun demands readers think beyond the familiar oppositions: Roundheads vs. Royalsts; Puritans vs. Bishops; Parliament vs. King. As one of its [End Page 193] stars, Gerard Winstanley, put it, "No priest, no king; no king, no judge; no judge, no landlord; no landlord, no priest" (410), an utterly radical extension of James Stuart's "No bishop, no king" rejoinder to calls for ecclesiastical reform. Populated by heroes ( Jean-Paul Sartre, Christopher Hill, the British Marxist historians, Ernest Bloch, Jurgen Habermas) and villains (Michel Foucault, a plethora of new historicists, and a dragons' mouthful of revisionists), Holstun's book offers rich readings in early modern English political culture that are bound to interest a range of scholars from the disciplines of literature and history. Mounting a powerful defense of "pre-post Marxist" interpretation, Holstun challenges new historicists in literary studies and revisionists in history to consider the ethical norms and political subtexts of their work. It should be required reading for those wishing to do politically-alert criticism.