Leader of the Diggers, or True Levellers, whose colony was forced to
disband in 1650, Gerrard Winstanley stands out from a century remarkable
for its development in political thought as one of the most fecund and
original of political writers. An acute and penetrating social critic
with a passionate sense of justice, he worked out a collectivist theory
which strikingly anticipates nineteenth- and twentieth-century
socialism. He was the first modern European thinker to write in the
vernacular advocating a communist society, and to call upon ordinary
people to realize it. Winstanley published a number of pamphlets on the
colony's behalf, among them a summary of his ideas, published in 1652 as
The Law of Freedom in a Platform and dedicated to Oliver Cromwell.
Christopher Hill's selection from Winstanley's many published pamphlets
demonstrates the coherence and social relevance of Winstanley's
philosophy, while it reveals his mastery of colloquial prose and his
superb use of imagery.