The English Civil War: Harbinger of Modernity

Chung Hon Michael Cheng Madyson Muscarello Senior Division Group Website

Process Paper

We chose our topic because English history isnt something taught in depth by American schools, but it had a huge impact on not only the formation of our country, but of the new world order. Originally, we had planned to research the Bessemer process, the steel manufacturing technique that catapulted Great Britain forward in the Industrial Revolution. However, the Bessemer process itself was too narrow and the Industrial Revolution too broad to make satisfactory project topics. While continuing the search for possible topic ideas, our teacher made a passing remark on the beheading of King Charles I during class one day. As the beheading of a monarch is almost always the beginning of a turning point in history, we researched independently, and our project was born. We conducted our research independently, and then fused all our findings. After perusing several library databases, we were able to find very good writtenas well as electronicallypublisheddocuments that aided us in our search. The important ideas and dates found in each book or website were compiled into a Google Docs personal database and were then reduced even more to fit inside the 1200 word count limit for website projects. Together, we interviewed the European History AP teacher at our school, and Rice University Professor of History Dr. John Zammito to get a better idea of the worldwide impact of the English Civil Wars. Jointly, we decided to create a web site because there was no other way for us to present all of our research. We found songs, maps, photographs, death warrants, and book passages that could not be accurately relayed or portrayed by the limited organizational space of the exhibit, the chronological order of the documentary or paper, or the oratory-oriented style of the skit. However, the perusable layout of a website gives the intellectually curious and historically

serious the ability to explore all aspects of an event in the layout that makes most sense to them, which is especially helpful when dealing with a topic of such complexity as the multidimensional English Civil Wara veritable spider web of information. Political, social, and organizational changes were all occurring at once, which would have made it very difficult to present our topic in any sort of chronological or timeline oriented pathway. Organization by grouping is much more effective with this particular topic. Also, we tweaked the HTML code to better suit the layout of our site to our purposes. The English Civil War: Harbinger of Modernity relates to the theme Turning Points in History because the English Civil Wars brought with them the parliamentary monarchy. Before the Civil Wars, Parliament was more on-paper than realistic. After the wars, however, Parliament became the foundation of the British government, and limited monarchy was born. Without this change in the way governments were formed, it can be argued that neither the Glorious Revolution of 1688 nor the American Revolution would have met with as much success as they did.

(495 words)