The Levellers | F. D. Dow (essay date 1985)
F. D. Dow (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "The Levellers," in Radicalism in the English Revolution, 1640-1660, pp. 30-56. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985.
[In the following essay, Dow studies the political factors leading to the emergence of the Leveller party. He also discusses various intellectual, religious, and philosophical influences on Leveller ideology, examines the primary goals of the party, and reviews the strengths and weaknesses of Leveller organization.]
In recent times the Levellers have enjoyed a diminishing reputation among historians of seventeenth-century England. Once hailed as the champions of a democratic revolution who were defeated only by the political turncoats in the New Model Army, and still referred to by some present-day politicans as the founding fathers of the working-class movement, the Levellers have been severely cut down to size by the current triumph of the revisionists. Their significance in the English...
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