Events moved with giddying speed in the 1650s. After the execution of Charles I, 'dangerous' monarchy was abolished and the House of Lords was dismissed, sending shock waves across the kingdom.

These revolutionary acts set in motion a decade of bewildering change and instability, under the leadership of the soldier-statesman Oliver Cromwell. England's unique and distinctive republican experiment may have been short-lived, but it changed the course of British history. It transformed the relationship between England, Scotland and Ireland, reset the compact between the monarch and the people, and re-fashioned the story the British told - and continue to tell - about themselves.

REPUBLIC is a richly engrossing year-by-year account of this exhilarating and daring period. It tells the story of what Britain's republic was really like: why it failed, but also, what it got right.