The Penguin History of Britain

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 31 MAR 1997

This sweeping, dramatic chronicle of a century of Stuart rule will rivet even the general reader with no particular interest in British history. Harvard history professor Kishlansky charts a tumultuous period of internecine wars, revolutions, political crises and endless religious strife, an era that saw England's union with neutralized Scotland, its conquest and plunder of Ireland, its acquisition of an empire in America. Each narrative chapter begins with a vivid italicized account of a key event (e.g., the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649; the 1628 knifing assassination of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, scapegoat for the failure of wars against Spain and France)-a device that works well, segueing into in-depth discussions of the political, social and economic conflicts that roiled Britain. There are magisterial, incisive portraits of Oliver Cromwell, fired by a millenarian vision of a glorious world to come; Catholic zealot James II, whose unprecedented, abortive libel suit against the Archbishop of Canterbury and six bishops led to his own ouster; and peacemaker Queen Anne, stubborn, unattractive, taciturn, yet beloved, whose rule brought the maturing of party politics. Kishlansky freshly delineates an age that opened with the public whipping, branding and mutilation of vagrants and closed with a newly defined interdependence of king, Parliament and the people.