THE NEW GREAT TEW CIRCLE OCTOBER 26 6.30pm
CIVIL WARS: THE WARNING SIGNS AND LEARNING FROM HISTORY
 
DIANE PURKISS
The English Civil War was certainly the bloodiest and perhaps the most significant conflict ever fought in these islands and yet many of us are strangely hazy about the details.
In her celebrated book The English War: A People’s History, first published in 2006, Diane Purkiss set out to change that by re-telling the conflict from the bottom up, filling it not only with the voices and stories of the people who caused the war to happen, or those like the Lucius Cary and the Great Tew Circle who fought to prevent it, but also the ordinary people who ended up having to fight and die in it. Casting the net wider than previous histories, her research pulled in news sheets, cookery books, diaries and autobiographies, particularly those of women, to place the conflict in the broadest possible perspective.
We are delighted to welcome Professor Purkiss to address the New Great Tew Circle. Her talk will take us through the events leading up to outbreak of the War, the period of Charles I’s personal rule, and how a conflict which so many worked so hard to avoid eventually became inevitable. With special reference to the local resonances – Oxford and Oxfordshire were at the epicentre of this history – she will look at the lessons about war, politics and human nature it still has to teach to teach us.
It is very much a talk for the general public, not an academic paper. As she writes in the prologue to her book, she writes for neither ‘a student nor a historian in the academy, but someone who has always wanted to know more about a subject and suddenly feels curious.’
October 26th 6.30 pm. St Michael and All Angels Great Tew with a lively dinner at the Vicarage to follow.
Talk £10.00 talk and dinner £25.00.  To book please contact Kate Drake. [email protected] Payment can be made by BACS transfer, or on the door, details on application.