Amazon.com
The beginning of the 17th century promised that England's golden age would long outlast its Elizabethan namesake. Within a few years, that promise would end in civil war, political unrest, and international conflict, a period of strife that would last for two centuries, but produce the modern British nation. In this swiftly moving narrative, the second installment in a three- volume companion to the BBC/History Channel television series, Simon Schama examines key events that would utterly change British life: the collapse of monarchy and republic, the establishment of the beginnings of empire, and the ever-wider division between court and country. The wars that accompanied these turns of fortune were, Schama writes, "eminently unpredictable, improbable, and avoidable." With them came the Glorious Revolution, the bloody suppression of religious dissent, the conquest of neighboring kingdoms, and the wide-scale movement of large populations from one place to another--including the deliberate introduction of nearly 100,000 Scots, Welsh, and English settlers in Ireland, which, Schama writes, "utterly dwarfed the related 'planting' on the Atlantic seaboard of North America." Along the way, Schama considers actors major and minor in this tumultuous play, from the unlucky king Charles I to Oliver Cromwell (who "lacked the one essential characteristic for true dictatorship: a hunger to accumulate power purely for its own sake"), from the writer Daniel Defoe to the pragmatic politician Sir Robert Walpole, from William Pitt to the African slaves who peopled Britain's American colonies.
Though understandably rushed and sometimes unfocused, Schama's narrative ably captures Britain's transformation from island outpost to global power. -- Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
This second in a series of three volumes, following the excellent A History of England: At the Edge of the World 3500 B.C.-1603 A.D., is an elegantly written, consistently engaging account of a seminal period in British history, penned by one of today's finest historians. Schama begins with the Stuart dynasty, which unified the crowns of Scotland and England in 1603 and as a result met its downfall. Schama contends that the concept of Great Britain caused constant upheaval for England: "The trouble was Calvinist Scotland and Catholic Ireland, and their deep religious incompatibility with Stuart England." When Charles I attempted to impose a unified religious establishment on Scotland, a firestorm ensued. In 1638, Scottish Calvinists signed a "National Covenant" and claimed that, by interfering with Scottish religion, Charles I had broken his contract, and Scotland claimed the right to overthrow him. A furious Charles called Parliament to raise military funds, but it denied his request. Instead, it began making demands for political, legal and religious rights. Charles's stubborn refusal to compromise triggered a civil war that resulted in his beheading. Parliament finally achieved its power-sharing demands in 1688-1689, when the Stuarts were toppled and an arrangement was reached with King William and Queen Mary. The year 1776, Schama points out, brought the ultimate irony: the American colonists demanded the same hard-earned liberties for which their British forefathers had fought the Stuarts. George III would prove every bit as obstreperous as Charles I. Columbia University historian Schama (The Embarrassment of Riches, etc.) is to be congratulated for this magisterial, delightfully accessible and important book. 150 color photos, 10 color maps not seen by PW. (Oct.)Forecast: As with the first volume, this book is issued simultaneously with the airing of a History Channel companion series. Schama's excellent reputation plus the book's rich illustrations make it a good gift book that should sell steadily through its 50,000 first printing.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The phrase "TV tie-in" too often suggests a once-over-lightly rehash or an ironed-out overview for "dummies." Not so Schama's tie-in to the History Channel's multipart examination of Britain. This second volume follows A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World, 3500 B.C.- 1603 A.D. [BKL S 15 00]; a third, concluding volume will bring the series into the modern era. Schama's fresh interpretations are not for the casual American reader with little prior knowledge of British history. This second installment is bracketed on one end by the advent of the Stuart dynasty on the English throne and, on the other end, by the halfway point of the Hanoverian era. The author's focus, as the subtitle indicates, is on the wars Britain fought during this tumultuous time. Schama is discerning, provocative, and even controversial as he analyzes the English civil wars of the 1640s, the Cromwellian "protectorate" of the same century, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Jacobite uprisings during the early reign of the Hanoverian kings, the Anglo-French conflicts in North America, the revolution of the American colonies, and the exploits of the East India Company in the eighteenth century. With original thought and a deft writing style ("the history of the British Empire turned from fantasy to military reality"), Schama reincarnates both famous personalities and not-so-famous figures in his wide and deep reconstruction of British life in these inherently dramatic years. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Kirkus Reviews
"Learned and literate...Schama is a lucid and trustworthy guide to the British past...an attractive introduction and overview."
Publishers Weekly
Delightfully accessible and important book....an elegantly written, consistently engaging account...penned by one of today's finest historians.
The New York Times Book Review
"The wonderful, exhilarating tale of the protracted birth of a nation...the grand political narrative sweeps along...immensely readable."
Miami Herald
"An elegantly written and engaging account."
Book Description
Inside these pages lies the bloody epic of liberty, the British Iliad. The second volume of Simon Schama's A History of Britain brings the histories of Britain's civil wars -- full of blighted idealism, shocking carnage, and unexpected outcomes -- startlingly to life. These conflicts were fought unsparingly between the nations of the islands -- Ireland, England, and Scotland -- and between parliament and the crown. Shattering the illusion of a "united kingdom," they cost hundreds of thousands of lives: a greater proportion of the population than died in the First World War. When religious passion gave way to the equally consuming passion for profits, it became possible for the pieces of Britain to come together as the spectacularly successful business enterprise of "Britannia Incorporated." And in a few generations that business state expanded in a dizzying process that transformed what had been an obscure, off-shore footnote to Europe's great powers into the main event -- the most powerful empire in the world. Yet somehow, it was the "wrong empire." The British considered it a bastion of liberty, yet it was based on military force and the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Africans. In America, the emptiness of British claims to protect "freedom" was thrown back into the teeth of colonial governors and redcoat soldiers, while the likes of Sam Adams and George Washington inherited the mantle of Cromwell. Simon Schama grippingly evokes the horror of the battle, famine, and plague; the flames of burning cities; the pathos of broken families, with fathers and sons forced to choose opposing sides. But he also captures the intimacies of palace and parliament and the seductions of profit and pleasure. Geniuses like John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, and Benjamin Franklin stalk vividly through his pages, but so do Scottish clansmen, women pamphleteers, and literate, eloquent African slaves like Olaudah Equiano.
About the Author
Simon Schama was born in London in 1945 and since 1966 has taught history and art history at Cambridge and Oxford and art history at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard. He is now university professor at Columbia University in New York. His prizewinning books include Patriots and Liberators; The Embarrassment of Riches; Dead Certainties; Landscape and Memory; Rembrandt's Eyes; and A History of Britain, Volume I He was art critic for The New Yorker for which he won a National Magazine Award. He is the writer/presenter of documentaries for BBC Television, and the next installments of his award-winning, fifteen-part documentary series, A History of Britain, will air on the History Channel in the fall of 2001 and the spring of 2002.
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