Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution by Peter Ackroyd
470 pages
Published 2014
Read from November 3 to November 8
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
Structurally, this is the best of Ackroyd's histories I've read to date. He manages to tell a cohesive and directed story of the central political events of the day, as he does in Tudors, but without abandoning the colorful anecdotes and glimpses into the lives of everyday people that made his older histories so engaging. One could hope for more asides on the important thoughts and authors of the day, but all in all Ackroyd finds a successful equilibrium here between rich detail and easy readability. In terms of interest factor, this book explores a period of English history rarely treated, at least in histories I find stateside. In these days when hardline religious movements conflate "freedom" with forcing their own specific ideology upon the body politic, the escalation and prosecution of the Civil War and the career of the Protectorate make for enlightening reading.
Three volumes into Ackroyd's expansive treatment of English history, the strains of meeting deadlines are just starting to show, mainly in recycled phrasings: I lost count of how many times a politician or a religious movement "raised the temperature" of a public debate or political situation; it was colorful the first time Ackroyd employed the phrase, but rapidly grew distracting. That tendency aside, Ackroyd's dry and concise style grows if anything more charming.
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