Calvinism, Reform and the Absolutist State in Elizabethan Ireland, by Mark A. Hutchinson

Mark A. Hutchinson’s book concerns the failure of the English colonisers adequately to enforce a system of stable governance in sixteenth-century Ireland. The role of religious discourse in the sixteenth century, and in particular its reforming imperatives, come under scrutiny as the author examines the ideologies underpinning English political and martial actions in its oldest colony. In doing so, Hutchinson’s book provides a learned and sensitive analysis of one of the most intriguing and controversial periods of Anglo-Irish history. The author represents one of a number of historians at the vanguard of Anglo-Irish historiography. While the triumvirate of Hiram Morgan, Nicholas Canny and Ciaran Brady form the foundational basis of much post-war writing about Ireland in general and the English presence in Ireland in particular, more recently, figures such as Hutchinson, Valerie McGowan-Doyle and Annaleigh Margey have drawn upon varied and divergent disciplines such as legal history, linguistics and cartography to elucidate many different aspects of their chosen subject.

Ancient history · Art · Calvinism · Historiography · Ideology · Irish · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Politics · Scrutiny · State (computer science) · Vanguard · Classics · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity