Customer Reviews

A History of Britain, Vol. 2: The Wars of the British, 1603-1776

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The second volume of Schama's book tie-in to the BBC and History Channel TV series takes Britain from the death of Elizabeth I (and the ascendancy of James I) to the end of the American Revolution and the settling of a British regime in the Indian subcontinent.

It gives more space to the tumultuous middle of the 17th century (350 of the 524 pages) -- with its see-sawing Catholic and Protestant regimes, the civil wars, and Restoration -- than the 18th century.

Perhaps what strikes one most about the entire period is how bloody gruesome the English ruling classes and armies once treated their own people as well as the Scots and Irish -- as badly as any 21st century religious dictatorship in Africa or Asia. Thousands were massacred after battles as well as during them; several of the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plotters had their hearts cut out while still alive.

Two years after his death and embalming, Cromwell's body was exhumed and publicly hanged. And not just humans suffered: When yet another wave of the plague struck London in 1665, and dog and cats were believed to be the cause, 40,000 dogs and perhaps 200,000 cats were slaughtered. The slave trade and the brutal labor conditions on a West Indian sugar plantation are vividly depicted.

(Bracing though all of this may be, it's encouraging to realize that such atrocities have ceased to occur within the UK in the past century and a half, just as it seems unlikely the Germans and French will ever again be at each other's throats, so maybe the species is making slow but inexorable progress toward the light. And what great movies all this history would make, and in some cases HAS made!)

Though the life of common folk gets somewhat short shrift, Schama does note significant developments along the way: the arrival of condoms, the growth of print news media, English society as seen through the eyes of a slave named Olaudah Equiano.

It is helpful to be reminded that while we Yanks tend to think of the "French and Indian War" as a quaint prelude to our Revolution (whose launching is stirringly related by Schama, who though a born Brit, spent a few years in Boston and now teaches at Columbia), the Seven Years War was actually a sort of "world war" between England and France for future dominance of the globe: battles took place in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, even West Africa and India, while Major George Washington was dashing about New England under Braddock's command.

Volume 2 regrettably has fewer maps than Volume 1 -- I would have appreciated a little more topographical help with the mid 17th century civil wars and Scottish campaigns -- and it also shows a few signs of having been rushed to print (e.g., "perpeptuated" on p. 99).

But Schama's smooth and engaging narrative style makes a fine introduction to English history for the less knowledgeable general reader. (For example, he wishes Jane Austen had been around to chronicle the vicious personal politics of India's administrators, and drily notes the repeated automatic lies that filled British propaganda about its enemies, decade after decade: "impaled babies, eviscerated pregnant mothers, roughed-up grandpas -- the usual thing....")

I look forward with eagerness to the next volume in the series.

Simon Schama's second volume in his ongoing project with BBC-TV on the history of Great Britain is another splendid introduction to British history. Here he chronicles the rapid rise of Great Britain's first empire, primarily in North America, and the bloody wars fought over its creation and subsequent demise. Although this is an introduction to 17th and 18th Century British history on a grand scale, it does manage to clear a few cobwebs and misconceptions, most notably, noting whom the intended victims were during Oliver Cromwell's savage campaign against Stuart loyalist forces in Ireland. Much to my amazement, the native Catholic Irish suffered lightly from Cromwell's butchery; only later, during James II's unsuccesful attempt to hold onto his crown, would Irish Catholics become victims of brutal warfare waged by Protestant forces. Most of the book is devoted to the English Civil War and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688/1689, yet Schama devotes considerable time to the two major 18th Century conflicts whose origins were in North America; the Seven Years War (In North America known as the "French and Indian War") and, of course, the American Revolution. The final chapter anticipates the rise of the second British Empire with an overview of British efforts in regulating, eventually dominating, trade in India.

I certainly concur with the previous reviews. But why is this book such a page-turner, besides the author being such a great narrator? I'll add some things not mentioned so far.

Well, he introduces the names well; he doesn't just "drop" them.

He writes indicating how the choices of the participants in the events mattered; he's not a historicist or inevitablist.

When he offers value judgments, they are not a priori, at the service of some pet theory of his own devising by which he judges the history. (But he gently pokes fun at Macaulay's Victorian grid, and the "imperialist" historians, doesn't he?)

For example, he contrasts the pursuit of the "right empire" and the "wrong empire" -- the chief value judgment of the book. In breathtakingly great narrative fashion he shows how the American colonies took the principles of liberty that they learned from the very previous period of British history, and went with them, while the Brits basically ignored them in setting up control over India. But he doesn't subject you to a long moralism about it. He simply mentions the crucial decisions and how momentous they would turn out to be. He even contrasts that with how the decisions seemed to those who made them at the time. (The momentous Stamp Act! The Tea Tax! and many other examples....)

The only reason you might not like this book is if you're looking for a particular slant and only things that "prove" your slant. For example, if you're looking for a history that whitewashes the Church of England, or the various other religious views, you won't get that. (I find a slight, slight anti-Calvinism in his descriptions a couple places myself. Not entrenched, but perceptible. I even wrote him about it!)

Similarly, if you're looking for a uniformly negative view of the Whig or the Tory sides of things, you won't get that. He seems very uninterested in griding his own axe.

I certainly like how he points out the beginnings of things: the beginnings of a daily-informed electorate; the beginnings of "shopping"; (an earlier review mentioned the tiny little reference to the beginnings of condoms); the beginnings of scientific explanation.

I think you'll love this book, and it will get you proud(er) of the love of history.

Simon Schama has written a fabulous book that takes the reader from the England that was merely an archipelago up to the time it becomes an empire. The time period of 1603-1776 is many times ignored or at best passed over quickly in your typical English history class or text. Here,the decidedly bloody English Civil Wars are given their due; the foundations of individual liberty and representative government were established during this time period and then exported to colonial America. The role of religion in politics (17th century version) is explored by the author as Oliver Cromwell's true influence on the nation. A must read for any anglophile.

I started reading this book with some reluctance. In general,
I find Schama (both as an author and lecturer -- I sat in on one
of his courses 20 years ago) to be so fond of supposedly illuminating anecdotes that the flow of the history he discusses gets lost.

However, in this book it works. The history is vivid -- his
portrayal of James I, Charles I, Cromwell, Charles II and James
II are rich -- and the anecdotes work to illuminate their
character.

I have enjoyed both installments of the television series, so it was with with great anticipation that I purchased both book companion pieces. I was dissapointed with volume 1 - probably with a stronger sense than normal since I spent so much money on it. Schama tried to cover several thousand years in one rather slim volume and it didn't work.

Nevertheless I ventured into the second volume and within the first fifty pages realized that at least part of my money was well spent. Volume two is much more focused, covering approximately 175 years. As another reviewer has observed this volume consists of an in-depth look at 17th century England. It's an excellent account of the English Civil War,Oliver Cromwell dictatorship, and the Restoration of the English monarchy. The chapter on the Restoration is over seventy pages long, a well written account of twenty - eight years. In comparison Schama covers several centuries in the same amount of space in volume one and it shows.

Schama also examines England during the eighteenth century; covering the beginning of the British Empire, the birth of modern caitalism, unification of England and Scotland and, of course, the American Revolution. This part is also well written and researched, but I found the first half to be suspenseful as well as insightful and dramatic. The second half tends towards a drier academic air - not a bad thing, just not as gripping.

Schama is a narrative historian, more of a storyteller than an academic. His writing is fast moving and he isn't afraid to take a stand, even if it tends to go against the popular opinion. The book itself consists of good quality paper and binding and it has some very nice illustrations throughout. While I have a few quibbles with his style, I think he should of had annotated notes at the end for example, overall I'm very impressed with the second volume. It isn't cheap, but it's worth it. I'll keep both books on my shelf, but I definitely see myself refering to volume two more often.

I could not put this book down. As an american, it gave me a whole new context in which to understand my country's origins (we were a continuation of a larger story, not the inventors of a radical new concept). Schama consciously focusses on this period as the time and place where democratic liberal capitalism was born, and so reading this book will show you the developments which led to the creation of the political system which now seems to be the standard around the world. Schama portrays it as a good thing, but he also shows how the struggles which produced it were not between good guys and bad guys but just different ideologies which all had their pros and cons. The book thus tempers the self-congratulatory spirit of the USA today.

Even more than its predecessor, this is a fine companion to the tv series of the same name. Partly that's because Schama isn't trying to do 4,600 years of history in one volume. And, besides constricting the time covered, Schama largely restricts the book to one theme: the notion of how the civil wars of the British, starting in the Stuart monarchies and ending with the American Revolution, led to a particular notion, an English notion of liberty.

In the Preface to the book, Schama describes himself as a "born-again Whig". He not only seems to mean an agreement with the gist of Victorian historians like Carlyle and Macauley - if not the details of their scholarship -- but what's been called the Whig notion of history, that great men matter.

Throughout the high points of the book, Oliver Cromwell and his reign, and the escalation of tensions before the American Revolution, he emphasizes history as often pivoting on the peculiarities of individual personalities. Cromwell, we see, may have been a theocrat, but he ultimately didn't think anyone, including himself, should have the power to sustain his regime. The loss of the American colonies was not inevitable - though Benjamin Franklin thought their eventual political and economic domination of the Empire was - but the result of stubborn personalities in the British government.

Besides the coverage of Cromwell and the English Civil War, the most interesting part of the book is how British culture and government went from, about circa 1740, explicitly rejecting a Roman style empire of occupation and all its attendant burdens and injustices, to Richard Wellesley's proconsulship in India. (The book really ends in 1800 India, not 1776, and the American Revolution is covered in full.)

Yes, Schama mentions the baser motives, deeds, and evils of this time including, of course, slavery. They have to be mentioned in such a general history, but the amount of time he spends on them is about right and not the obligatory genuflection to the modern Church of Imperial Guilt.

The broad outlines of this history were not new to me, but I learned many details I didn't know including some about the American Revolution. Since I'm not well-read about any of the events or personalities involved, I don't know what errors or questionable descriptions Schama has committed. (Though I do note that it is unlikely "The World Turned Upside Down" was played at Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.)

As with the first volume, Schama's experience as art historian and essayist serve him well. His chapters are long essays, ending and beginning neatly around a theme. He has a knack for picking vivid anecodotes and writing them up to neatly summarize a period. My favorite, the beginning of an account of the Glencoe Massacre: "In Williamite Britain, showing up late could get you killed."

Having Irish-Americans in your family can prejudice your take on British history especially during the epoch period of 1603 to 1776. Many an evening has been spent sitting in my in-laws living room discussing the evils of English tyranny and religious intolorance that sent the McCormick's, Tooey's, O'Brian's and O'Toole's across the Atlantic. That said, I am glad to say that volume II was an enlightening read and is a good overview of the circmustances which lead to British colonialism. As was the case in volume I, Schama does an excellent job of storytelling and bringing to life the personalities and contemporary social gestalt which ends up as history. I actually think this was a better book than volume I in that the limited scope of the time period covered enabled a deeper discussion. I especially enoyed reading Shama's description of Oliver Cromwell and the Rump Parliament; and I do agree with his subtle suggestion that it was perhaps a crude template for the government of the United States of America.

After plowing through the first volume, I couldn't wait to get started on the second volume. This book was going to be incredible. After all look what was going to be covered.. Everything from 1603-1776.. This volume would climax with the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Given Schama writing style in volume 1, this was going to be incredible....

But alas.... Although not as bad as the final volume, when compared to the first volume, this could have been soooo much better. Schama starts to depart from his telling of historical facts and gives way to relating aspects of British culture. It is almost like Schama can't quite decide on what type of book he his trying to write. Is his audience one with limited knowledge of British History, or is he writing to people looking for a more in depth discussion of certain aspects of Britich Society?

His writings about the religious upheavals is interesting and I was particularly intrigued by his detailed account of Oliver Cromwell, but as I finished this book, I could only feel somewhat cheated by his lack of detail in relating the middle part of the 18th century.

As with the first volume, the pictures and maps were outstanding.