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
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm