One of the most renowned historians of the English Civil War has written a crisp and lucid narrative of the complicated events of 1640 to 1660—not just the war between King and Parliament of 1642-46 but the second civil war, the execution of King Charles I, the rule of Cromwell, and finally the restoration of the monarchy. Blair Worden gets behind the preoccupations of later generations and explains what contemporaries on both sides thought they were fighting for and against.