John Adamson
Scots at the Top
Rebellion: Britain’s First Stuart Kings, 1567–1642
By Tim Harris
Oxford University Press 588pp £30
When, in 1884, the great Victorian historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner published his pioneering History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War 1603–1642, it took him ten substantial volumes to cover just those 39 years. Tim Harris’s impressive new book manages to survey the same historical terrain rather more briskly, in a single plump volume. But it is not only its succinctness that distinguishes his book from Gardiner’s. In the intervening century, the years between the arrival of James I in London in 1603 and the descent into civil war in 1642 have remained one of the most intensely contested and controversial periods in English – and British – history, and Harris’s account reflects not only how our understanding of the period has advanced, but in important respects how it has doubled back to its Victorian beginnings.
The sharpest difference is in the realm of political ideas. For Gardiner – as for most of the writers who succeeded him – the early 17th century was an age of intense, and ultimately irreconcilable, constitutional controversy. In contrast, Harris’s portrayal of politics and ideas in the Stuart realms is
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk