Religion and Revolution in Early-Industrial England: The Halevy Thesis and Its Critics

This book presents and criticizes the thesis of Elie HalEvy (1870-1937), a liberal French historian, philosopher and political scientist. Developed before World War I, his thesis on early industrial England is still influential today. In his extensive studies of England in the 18th and 19th centuries, HalEvy asked why the English were spared the frequent revolutions which his countrymen experienced during the same period. He found his answer in the restraining and spreading influences of Evangelicalism which Methodists shared with some low-church Anglicans and some Nonconformists. This study includes excerpts from the works of HalEvy and many of his most distinguished British and North American critics, as well as extensive notes explaining specialized terms and historical references, a selected bibliography, and an introductory essay by the editor, reviewing the HalEvy thesis and criticisms of it. Contents: The HalEvy ThesisoPresented and Criticized; Met and Evangelicalism in John Wesley’s Life-Time; Methodism and Evangelicalism After Wesley’s Death; Methodism and Liberal Historians; Methodism and Marxist Historians; and The HalEvy Thesis Re-Examined.