Ehud's Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution

In this volume, Holstun reconstructs five radical projects of 17th-century England in a development of Marxist history from below. Referencing the biblical story of Ehud who, with the words I have a message from God unto thee took a dagger and thrust it into the belly of the tyrannical ruler Eglon, so delivering the Israelites from 18 years of tyranny, Holstun examines the political and poetic furore surrounding John Felton, assassin of the Duke of Buckinghamshire and republican cause celebre. Turning his attention on the Revolution proper, he focuses on the common soldiers of the Puritan New Model Army
the Fifth Monarchist visionary Anna Trapnel
the Leveller theorist and desperado Edward Sexby
and the agrarian communist diggers of Surrey, whose comrade and leader Gerrard Winstanley was the foremost social theorist of 17th-century England.