Treacherous Faith is a major study of heresy and the literary imagination from the English Reformation to the Restoration. It analyzes both canonical and lesser-known writers who contributed to fears about the contagion of heresy, as well as those who challenged cultural constructions of heresy and the rhetoric of fear-mongering

Christopher Durston's full-scale study ambitiously documents the history behind what remains today, a powerful symbol of military rule. He explores the motivations behind the decisions to appoint the major-generals, looking at their careers and personalities. Durston pays particular attention to the collection of the decimation tax, the attempt to improve the security of the regime, and the struggle to build a godly nation. He concludes with an investigation of the 1656 election and the major-generals' subsequent fall from power.

The latter half of the seventeenth century saw the Puritan families of England struggle to preserve the old values in an era of tremendous political and religious upheaval. Even non-conformist ministers were inclined to be pessimistic about the endurance of `godliness' - Puritan attitudes and practices - among the upper classes. Based on a study of family papers and other primary resources, Trevor Cliffe's study reveals that in many cases, Puritan county families were playing a double game: outwardly in communion with the Church, they often employed non-conformist chaplains, and attended nonconformist meetings.

This volume examines the political ideas behind the construction of the presidency in the U.S. Constitution, as well as how these ideas were implemented by the nation’s early presidents. The framers of the Constitution disagreed about the scope of the new executive role they were creating, and this volume reveals the ways the duties and power of the office developed contrary to many expectations. Here, leading scholars of the early republic examine principles from European thought and culture that were key to establishing the conceptual language and institutional parameters for the American executive office. Unpacking the debates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, these essays describe how the Constitution left room for the first presidents to set patterns of behavior and establish a range of duties to make the office functional within a governmental system of checks and balances. Contributors explore how these presidents understood their positions and fleshed out their full responsibilities according to the everyday operations required to succeed. As disputes continue to surround the limits of executive power today, this volume helps identify and explain the circumstances in which limits can be imposed on presidents who seem to dangerously exceed the constitutional parameters of their office. Political Thought and the Origins of the American Presidency demonstrates that this distinctive, time-tested role developed from a fraught, historically contingent, and contested process. Contributors: Claire Rydell Arcenas | Lindsay M. Chervinsky | François Furstenberg | Jonathan Gienapp | Daniel J. Hulsebosch | Ben Lowe | Max Skjönsberg | Eric Slauter | Caroline Winterer | Blair Worden | Rosemarie Zagarri A volume in the Alan B. and Charna Larkin Series on the American Presidency

The irresistible, candid diaries of Richard Burton, published in their entirety “Just great fun, and written out of an engaging, often comical bewilderment: How did a poor Welshman become not only a star, but a player on the world stage that was Elizabeth Taylor’s fame?”—Hilton Als, NewYorker.com “Of real interest is that Burton was almost as good a writer as an actor, read as many as three books a day, haunted bookstores in every city he set foot in, bought countless books on every conceivable subject and evaluated them rather shrewdly. . . . Apt writing abounds.”—John Simon, New York Times Book Review Irresistibly magnetic on stage, mesmerizing in movies, seven times an Academy Award nominee, Richard Burton rose from humble beginnings in Wales to become Hollywood's most highly paid actor and one of England's most admired Shakespearean performers. His epic romance with Elizabeth Taylor, his legendary drinking and story-telling, his dazzling purchases (enormous diamonds, a jet, homes on several continents), and his enormous talent kept him constantly in the public eye. Yet the man behind the celebrity façade carried a surprising burden of insecurity and struggled with the peculiar challenges of a life lived largely in the spotlight. This volume publishes Burton's extensive personal diaries in their entirety for the first time. His writings encompass many years—from 1939, when he was still a teenager, to 1983, the year before his death—and they reveal him in his most private moments, pondering his triumphs and demons, his loves and his heartbreaks. The diary entries appear in their original sequence, with annotations to clarify people, places, books, and events Burton mentions. From these hand-written pages emerges a multi-dimensional man, no mere flashy celebrity. While Burton touched shoulders with shining lights—among them Olivia de Havilland, John Gielgud, Claire Bloom, Laurence Olivier, John Huston, Dylan Thomas, and Edward Albee—he also played the real-life roles of supportive family man, father, husband, and highly intelligent observer. His diaries offer a rare and fresh perspective on his own life and career, and on the glamorous decades of the mid-twentieth century.

The Cromwellian Protectorate examines the nature of the first regime ever to have had effective control of the British Isles and the impact that it had on England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and on Britain’s international reputation. Few previous studies of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell and his son, Richard, have given sufficient emphasis to its achievements. Instead they have characterized it either as "a military dictatorship" or a reactionary regime that after the revolutionary events of 1649 put Britain on a road that led inevitably to the restoration of the monarchy. This book presents an alternative view of the Cromwellian Protectorate.

This examination of republicanism in an Anglo-American and European context gives weight not only to the thought of the theorists of republicanism but also to the practical experience of republican governments in England, Geneva, the Netherlands, and Venice.