Healey channels the inquiring spirit which came to define this revolutionary age, creating his own survey as rich and wide-ranging as the pioneering work of the seventeenth-century characters he so admires.

The 17th century saw an explosion of new ways of disseminating information and spreading news and, also then as now, disinformation.England was visited by the plague, London destroyed by the great fire, religious freedoms were granted and restricted, and one more "Glorious" revolution replaced one royal line with another steering through the multi-dimensional clashes of the century.

While Charles II’s ascendance to the throne led to religious oppression and crackdowns on the press, Parliamentary and popular dissent — like the republic itself — nevertheless lived on.One can easily understand the simple progression from battling against hierarchies within a church to fighting against hierarchies anywhere.