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THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022
WINNER OF THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE

Eleven years when Britain had no king.

In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution.

On a raw January afternoon, the Stuart king, Charles I, was executed for treason. Within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the ‘useless and dangerous’ House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What this meant, and where it would lead, no one knew.

The Restless Republic is the story of the extraordinary decade that followed. It takes as its guides the people who lived through those years. Among them is Anna Trapnel, the daughter of a Deptford shipwright whose visions transfixed the nation. John Bradshaw, the Cheshire lawyer who found himself trying the King. Marchamont Nedham, the irrepressible newspaper man and puppet master of propaganda. Gerrard Winstanley, who strove for a Utopia of common ownership where no one went hungry. William Petty, the precocious scientist whose mapping of Ireland prefaced the dispossession of tens of thousands. And the indomitable Countess of Derby who defended to the last the final Royalist stronghold on the Isle of Man.

The Restless Republic ranges from London to Leith, Cornwall to Connacht, from the corridors of power to the common fields and hillsides. Gathering her cast of trembling visionaries and banished royalists, dextrous mandarins and bewildered bystanders, Anna Keay brings to vivid life the most extraordinary and experimental decade in Britain’s history. It is the story of how these tempestuous years set the British Isles on a new course, and of what happened when a conservative people tried revolution.

Publisher Review

'The remarkable thing about Keay's narrative is how colourful it is ... Her narrative brims with life, colour, humour and humanity ... A dazzling achievement, and I loved every page' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'This is an exceptional book about an exceptional time ... In a series of meticulously researched and deftly drawn character studies ... Keay brilliantly conveys what it was like to live amid the contrasts and contradictions, the heady optimism and the bleak despair, of that tumultuous age ... A triumph. It is hard to imagine a better introduction to the volatile world of the 1650s' John Adamson, author of The Noble Revolt 'An exceptional feat of imagination. Never have the kingless years been made so vivid, and never has vividness contributed so much to the understanding of them. Keay has brought off an ingenious literary experiment... An entrancing achievement' Blair Worden, TLS 'Wonderful.... Tells the story of how the British and Irish people came to be who they are' Clive Myrie 'Deft, confident, deeply learned and provocative, underpinned by an extraordinary sense of the landscape and the architecture ... Anna Keay traces with fierce intelligence the remarkable and restless lives' Rory Stewart '[A] vivid panorama ... Keay conjures up with nuance and panache the single most fascinating decade in the history of Britain and Ireland, revealing it to be at once weirdly ancient and strangely modern' Paul Lay, The Times 'Keay offers us a world turned upside down; but also a world made real. That's a remarkable achievement' Adrian Tinniswood, Sunday Telegraph ***** 'Keay skilfully navigates the reader through the complex history of the 1650s ... It is a remarkable achievement, broad-ranging in both geographical and intellectual scope and impressively even-handed in its judgements'Edward Vallance, Literary Review