Samuel Rawson Gardiner was an English historian, who specialized in 17th-century English history, and is regarded as the foremost historian of the Puritan revolution and the English Civil War.

One of the most complete histories of this inter-Christian war, fought mainly in the heartland of present-day Germany, in which up to 40 percent of the population was killed.

This volume contains an introduction by Christopher Hill, an authority on 17th-century English history, in which he sums up Gardiner's importance both in his own time and for ours.