Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate • Hacker News Board

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#31

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

eternalban wrote: post #28

pjc50 wrote: post #8

Cromwell really does have a lingering propaganda support, doesn't he? The UK is one of a very small number of countries to have deliberately restored its monarchy after a revolution and period of parliamentary government, and the reason for that is that Cromwellian government was even worse for a lot of people. A modern analogue might be the Iranian Revolution; congratulations on getting rid of the puppet monarch con…

I must object to your "puppet monarch" comment here. By the standards of 'puppetry' that we can discern from historic documents the Shah of Iran was no more of a puppet than a certain "poodle". Do you always prefix "puppet minister" before say mentioning Tony Blair or any of the post Suez UK PMs? People like you who in the tradition of "lingering propaganda" continue to cast calumny on the late Shah of Iran need to l…

From the point of view of the revolutionaries, who objected to "foreign influence". Regardless of how much the Shah was under American influence or Charles I under Papal influence, the perception that they were was used against them by their enemies.

(I have to say that running into a partisan defending the honor of the late Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the internet is a new experience. I was sort of expecting someone to object that the claim that a Catholic monarch was a puppet of the Pope was sectarian - which it is, but again that's not my position but the position of the Cromwellians)

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#32

Post by growlist » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

dev_north_east wrote: post #3

> albeit well over 300 years later, and as further proof that the Irish have perhaps the longest memories in the world. Oh right. At what point do historical figures get a free pass on bringing up their bad doings? And by bad doings, we're talking deaths in the hundreds of thousands, enforced slavery etc.

Still waiting for my reparations from the Normans.

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#33

Post by rjsw » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #8

Cromwell really does have a lingering propaganda support, doesn't he? The UK is one of a very small number of countries to have deliberately restored its monarchy after a revolution and period of parliamentary government, and the reason for that is that Cromwellian government was even worse for a lot of people. A modern analogue might be the Iranian Revolution; congratulations on getting rid of the puppet monarch con…

> The UK does an extremely bad job of teaching its historial "religious" conflict, which was rarely about doctrine so much as temporal power-politics.

One essay that does attempt to address the politics is this [1]

[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-re...

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#34

Post by rjsw » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:33 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #12

pjc50 wrote: post #8

Cromwell really does have a lingering propaganda support, doesn't he? The UK is one of a very small number of countries to have deliberately restored its monarchy after a revolution and period of parliamentary government, and the reason for that is that Cromwellian government was even worse for a lot of people. A modern analogue might be the Iranian Revolution; congratulations on getting rid of the puppet monarch con…

> The UK does an extremely bad job of teaching its historial "religious" conflict, which was rarely about doctrine so much as temporal power-politics. I disagree. There really is no way to understand the English Civil War without understanding the religious disputes at its cores. Yes, it was a power struggle. But for the most part, many if not most of its major players were fighting out of deep-seated religious convi…

The map of Royalist areas also matches that of support for Brexit.

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#35

Post by kaycebasques » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

If there's any one here that's well-versed in USA history and this episode of Cromwell history, can you give me an example of an event in American history that's similarly controversial along the lines of what I'm seeing in this HN discussion? I know that there will be no perfect comparison but I sense that there is some historical event with a similar sort of political charge and ambiguity.

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#36

Post by notahacker » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #8

Cromwell really does have a lingering propaganda support, doesn't he? The UK is one of a very small number of countries to have deliberately restored its monarchy after a revolution and period of parliamentary government, and the reason for that is that Cromwellian government was even worse for a lot of people. A modern analogue might be the Iranian Revolution; congratulations on getting rid of the puppet monarch con…

The range of opinions of Cromwell amongst modern and historic Britons is even wider than the range of views Cromwell chose to project [a man known not only for winning a war for Parliamentary prerogative and then permanently dissolving Parliament, but also both for enforcement of extreme Puritanism and murderous repression of Catholics and and for drafting comparatively tolerant legislation on freedom of worship and allowing Jews to return to England]

The reviewer Simon Heffer, an admirer of influential historian Carlyle who put Cromwell at the centre of his 'Great Man' theories of history and did more to rehabilitate Cromwell's image in British eyes than anyone else, represents one extreme of that range of opinion.

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#37

Post by rsynnott » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #27

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Irish slavery” is usually a sign someone is a racist asshole who has no idea what they’re talking about.

Racist? Toward whom, Irish? I'm sorry, not from the anglosaxon world, I know britain put Ireland under the boot centuries ago, but is calling all of that's effects a form of enslavement deragotary toward Irish?

There's a frequent claim, especially amongst the American far-right, that chattel slavery of Irish people was a common thing (it wasn't, outside isolated cases, generally of non-white Irish people eg https://medium.com/@Limerick1914/an-irish-slave-in-antigua-7...), and that this somehow shows that slavery isn't a factor in the modern socioeconomic condition of black people in the US (because Irish people in the US had better socioeconomic outcomes).

In reality, indentured servitude of Irish people (and English people) was common in the early colonisation of America. This would be considered _modern_ slavery, colloquially (the term slavery is in a modern context used for all unfree labour), but it wasn't _chattel_ slavery, and was pretty dramatically different from chattel slavery. In addition, most Irish people immigrated to the America in the 19th century as free immigrants.

The Irish slavery myth isn't inherently racist (though it is inherently ahistorical), but it is often used as a racist talking point.

Much more context here: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/04/19/how-myth-iris... ; tldr; it's complicated.

By the way, it's worth noting that claims of widespread Irish chattel slavery are almost exclusively an American thing. Here in Ireland history classes etc give a more accurate impression of it. Cromwell engaged in in forced population displacement and unfree labour in Ireland (and there's certainly a case that he engaged in genocide), but not chattel slavery. Think more Stalin than Caesar.

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#38

Post by notahacker » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

rjsw wrote: post #34

dcolkitt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK does an extremely bad job of teaching its historial "religious" conflict, which was rarely about doctrine so much as temporal power-politics. I disagree. There really is no way to understand the English Civil War without understanding the religious disputes at its cores. Yes, it was a power struggle. But for the most part, many if not most of its major players were fighting out of deep-seated religious convi…

The map of Royalist areas also matches that of support for Brexit.

An interesting idea but tenuous. The Parliamentary homeland in the southeastern counties mostly voted for Brexit outside London, Cambridge and Oxford [Oxford being a royalist redoubt surrounded by Parliamentarians on the Civil War map rather than the reverse]. The Remain voting areas of England were mostly conurbations which didn't exist during the Civil War, some of them like Liverpool being in predominantly Royalist areas. Overall, the local population didn't get much say in which areas were occupied by which troops back then either.

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#39

Post by kingraoul3 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

alphadevx wrote: post #5

dev_north_east wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know where to start, consider me triggered ;-) Ha! You and me both. As an Irish lad in the UK, one of the funniest things I still encounter is republicans (British ones!) who hold him up as a hero. You really have to wonder at times.

I would love to see Britain become a republic some day for their benefit (up to them of course to vote on that), but agree they need a better hero.

King! King! No point in the thing!

Re: Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate

#40

Post by eternalban » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 3:12 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #31

eternalban wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must object to your "puppet monarch" comment here. By the standards of 'puppetry' that we can discern from historic documents the Shah of Iran was no more of a puppet than a certain "poodle". Do you always prefix "puppet minister" before say mentioning Tony Blair or any of the post Suez UK PMs? People like you who in the tradition of "lingering propaganda" continue to cast calumny on the late Shah of Iran need to l…

From the point of view of the revolutionaries , who objected to "foreign influence". Regardless of how much the Shah was under American influence or Charles I under Papal influence, the perception that they were was used against them by their enemies. (I have to say that running into a partisan defending the honor of the late Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the internet is a new experience. I was sort of expecting someone t…

"I have to say that running into a partisan defending the honor of the late Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the internet is a new experience."

Yeh, it's called "propaganda". As you can see, it works.

However you have chosen in your oblique reponse to not respond to a simple question: what is your definition of puppet? And how does Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi qualify per that standard?

Looking forward to your thoughtful response.