Cohn's enthusiasm

You're right that Norman Cohn's most famous book, The Pursuit of the Millennium, was written to highlight links between millenarianism and totalitarianism (Obituaries, August 9). But Cohn had an infectious enthusiasm which was readily picked up by radical youngsters in the heady 1970s, when Paladin astutely reissued the book in paperback. For many of us it was our first introduction to Gerrard Winstanley's Digger movement, and to ranters such as Abiezer Coppe, to whom Cohn assigned "an honourable place in the gallery of literary eccentrics", or Joseph Salmon, whom he classed as "a writer of real poetic power".

His book did indeed carry warnings about how revolutionary movements could turn sour. But it also showed that the hippy attempt to combine mystical awareness with social revolution was a continuation of a long tradition.
Simon Fairlie
South Petherton, Somerset