After forty years of relative obscurity, Oliver Cromwell emerged as a leader in the parliamentary opposition to the king during the English Revolution and became the most powerful man in Britain. This module will explore the life and times of Cromwell and provide a point of entry into political, religious and social change in early modern England from the long Reformation to the Restoration. It will draw from a host of primary sources to enter into Cromwell's puritan mental world and seek to understand his personal and national aspirations. It will build on this to explore Cromwell's conquest of Ireland and Scotland and his ambitious plans to undermine Spanish power in the Atlantic. Finally, the module will consider Cromwell's controversial reception by contemporaries and his diverse representations in popular culture, film and history.