1688: The First Modern Revolution — Steve Pincus

Pincus argues against the standard view of the Glorious Revolution as a conservative, bloodless transfer of power, presenting it instead as a genuine revolution — contested, violent, and transformative — that established the template for modern state formation. Drawing on English, Dutch, and French sources, he reconstructs the ideological conflict between two competing visions of the English state and shows that the outcome was far from predetermined. The book rewrites one of the most misunderstood events in English political history.

'A landmark work of revisionist history. Pincus forces us to reconsider everything we thought we knew about 1688.' — Times Literary Supplement. 'Brilliant and iconoclastic.' — The Guardian. 'The most important book on seventeenth-century England in a generation.' — David Cannadine