Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
As irritating as it is fascinating, January 2, 2005
This is what the title says: A book about the year 1603. A reader who expects an in-depth explanation of the machinations surrounding the succession of Elizabeth I by James I will be disappointed. Any discussion of this interesting subject remains extremely superficial.
The strength of Lee's work is his attempt to convey to his public what it must have been to live in 1603. This is supported by long quotations from publications of the period, and these are both enlightening and amusing. His rather rambling style of writing is well suited to conveying a period atmosphere.
The big weakness is in the careless way in which the author swims through the surrounding history. At times he throws in references to people and events without bothering to explain who and what to the reader, as if he wants to show off his erudition by being impenetrable. At other times he demonstrates rather crass ignorance for a historian of the period, by messing up the titles of the Cecil family, uncritically repeating gratuitous slander about the Earl of Bothwell, or echoing tyhe schoolboy's book version of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. In a book like this, such errors cannot be excused.
The result is the written equivalent of a custome drama with an unitelligible plot. It is a series of scenes, each conveying a certain atmosphere, but not integrated together in a story. The book fails to convince the reader that is a coherent unit, and in fact it also fails to convince the reader that the author has a good understanding of his own chosen subject.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
More confusing than interesting, June 10, 2004
This review is from: 1603: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the Birth of the Stuart Era (Hardcover)
Popular history dedicated to a single year often proves a very successful approach. It allows the author to make complementary explorations of developments in various areas, be those geographies, cultures, and/or ideas. (John Wills' "1688: A Global History" was a particularly successful example of the genre.) Christopher Lee's book about 1603 - limited mostly to Great Britain - is not so successful. The audience for this book will be largely those already familiar with British history, geography, and current idiom. I thought I had a reasonably good grasp of the genealogy of the British kings and queens leading up to 1603; my grasp loosened considerably after reading Lee's attempt to clarify the lineages. My alienation was reinforced by the frequency of phrases such as "as we know" and "of course" when the author deals with facts that non-British readers are unlikely to know or to treat as a matter of course. ("Lady Jane Grey ... was, of course, Warwick's own daughter-in-law.") And isn't the author overly fond of the rhetorical question? (Examples abound, such as: "The Jesuits?" and "What of James in all this?") Lee's main organizing principle is that of proving that 1603 was an important year in history. Although he cites one historian with an opposing view, the question strikes me as neither controversial nor deep. And without that, the text, like the subtitle, proves to be just a stringing together of topics. Some of these topics are compelling, but too many aren't. A chapter on piracy works. One on King James' coronation is interminably dull. There are numerous historical nuggets and oddities to be mined here. But the excavation effort proved too strenuous for this reader.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but misguided, April 15, 2006
This review is from: 1603: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the Birth of the Stuart Era (Hardcover)
I found Christopher Lee's 1603 to be a somewhat of an interesting if not misguided effort to present what life and events were like back in 1603. There's a lot of information in this book which proves to be interesting but they are poorly organized and presented. The author appears to throw them in without much explanations as if he wishes to showed off his primary sources.
As the previous reviewer mentioned, there were also many childish errors in this book. Errors that a book published in 2003 should not be making because of new information that came out during the past 40 years. But what strike me the most was Chapter 17 when the author - who for some strange reason, switched over to Japanese history of 1603 and started to write about the struggles there. I don't see the relationship but what I read were host of errors and misunderstanding of Japanese history that was almost insulting to read. (For example: "Shogun Hideyoshi"?? What Japanese child of 10 would make such an error? That is like some one writing "President Elizabeth I"!!) Its pretty clear that neither the author or the editor of this book knows little about Japanese history. But that chapter alone proves to be the reflection of the book itself, sloppy, ill-written and poorly researched.
I would recommended the book After Elizabeth by Leanda de Lisle which covers the same period and does it with a more professional flair.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
