A History of Britain, Volume 2: The Wars of the British, 1603-1776 FROM OUR EDITORS
Simon Schama continues his masterful history of Britain with this look at the years 1606 to 1776, a time when civil wars broke out -- between England, Scotland, and Ireland and between Parliament and the Crown. What toll would the unrelenting conflict take on Britain as a whole? As the British Empire took form, what would its growth mean for the rest of the world? Would it be an empire of freedom, as the British promised, or an empire of tyranny and enslavement? In the American colonies, the answer to that question would soon lead to a cataclysmic revolutionﾽ
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Simon Schama, one of the world's most distinguished historians, covers the most tumultuous eras of Britain's past in this second installment of his epic history of Britain. Schama's powerful, dramatic narrative focuses on political and social change from England's first ventures into the New World through periods of colonial expansion, radical scientific advancement, industrial revolution, and two World Wars.
FROM THE CRITICS
New York Times Book Review
The Wars of the British is the wonderful, exhilarating tale of the protracted birth of a nation. As with all Schama books, the grand political narrative sweeps along...immensely readable.
Publishers Weekly
Delightfully accessible and important book....an elegantly written,
consistently engaging account...penned by one of today's finest historians.
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, delightfullyaccessible 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.
Kirkus Reviews
The spry second installment of Schama's projected three-volume history of the Sceptred Isle (the first volume not reviewed). Though published as a big-ticket trade item by a resolutely hip press, Schama's is an old-fashioned history, learned and literate, uninfluenced by prevailing notions of political correctness or historiographic theory; this is all about great men who dared to make a name for themselves and their nation, not about social tendencies or voiceless oppressed classes. Schama's characters are thus well-known to readers even casually familiar with British history-oddballs such as Samuel Pepys, rebels such as William Blake and Daniel Defoe, philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, and above all, sword-wielding reformers and warriors such as Oliver Cromwell and Lord Cornwallis. Collectively, though each in his own way, these men advanced their nation from a relative backwater of northwestern Europe to the status of world power, though not without cost over a tumultuous brace of centuries; as Schama (Rembrandt's Eyes, 1999, etc.) notes, "Britain killed England. And it left Scotland and Ireland hemorrhaging in the field." In the process, Britain remade whole nations-by, for instance, transplanting more than 100,000 Scots, Welsh, and English immigrants into Northern Ireland, which would be the source of centuries of trouble that "utterly dwarfed the related ﾽplanting' on the Atlantic seaboard of North America." It enacted a program of religious as well as ethnic cleansing, destroying the Catholic Church and other dissident sects. And it entrusted with sovereign power feckless kings such as Charles II and George III, who, despite severe limitations, oversaw GreatBritain's imperial growth-a growth fueled by Europe's "craze for hot, powerfully caffeinated beverages" as much as any formal plan. This is familiar ground all the way, and Schama brings little new scholarship to it. Still, he is a lucid and trustworthy guide to the British past, and readers new to the subject will find this an attractive introduction and overview. TV/radio satellite tour
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