The English Civil War At First Hand by Tristram Hunt (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £18.99)

THE catastrophe that engulfed England during the 1640s would be without equal until the events of 1914 eclipsed every upheaval that had gone before.

A conflict that had started with a king ruling by divine right had ended with a patriarch dictator with a republic as his domain.

England had emerged bloodily from the Middle Ages and imperial destiny beckoned.

Yet today, there are hardly any references to the struggle that tore the land apart, setting brother against brother and father against son.

The English Civil War does not linger long in the folk memory - unlike the French or Americans, we do not constantly refer to cataclysm by way of a benchmark.

Tristram Hunt addresses this question by returning to the contemporary debates, journals and diaries of the day and resuscitating the lost voices of our own revolution.

He has also uncovered lesser-known sources, that, added together, present a fascinating new angle on the years between 1637 and 1652, when Cromwell's Parliamentarians and Charles I's cavaliers fought tooth and nail across the green fields of England.

With lavish illustrations, this book is both a perfect introduction to the period and a companion for anyone wanting to delve deeper into the times when the country was undergoing its painful birth into the modern age.

John Phillpott