Reviews

Through an examination of hundreds of newsbooks and pulp publications, Friedman, who has previously published on the Ranters during the English Civil War, seeks to understand the mind of the ordinary English person between 1640 and 1660. He concludes that Puritan reform and regicide were unpopular, making the Restoration inevitable. He offers a fascinating account of the content of pulp literature of the period and rightly compares the works to the modern tabloid in terms of content and audience. Friedman's revelations about popular culture will appeal to a readers with a wide range of interests, including social and political history and the history of the book.-- Joseph Rosenblum, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro