Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day (Profiles in History) (Hardcover)

by James Sharpe (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The potent symbiosis-and ultimate disentangling-of religion and politics in the modern era is explored in this study of a very British holiday. Historian Sharpe gives a sprightly recap of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a narrowly foiled conspiracy by English Catholics to blow up Parliament and the King, and its subsequent November 5th commemoration through the centuries. The original Gunpowder Treason Day, he notes, was a festival of militant Protestantism, celebrated with bonfires, processions and the reading of anti-Papist screeds from pulpits across the kingdom. As anti-Catholic vitriol waned with the Enlightenment, burning effigies of the Pope gave way to effigies of leading conspirator Guy Fawkes, who became a romantic icon and a radical champion of the downtrodden poor. In Victorian times, November 5th added the sobriquet of Bonfire Night, giving incendiary vent to an unfocused working-class anti-authoritarianism which met with crackdowns by urban police forces. In recent days, Sharpe laments, the holiday has been preempted and eclipsed by the imported juggernaut of American-style Halloween, a celebration of an entirely depoliticized ur-religion of spirits and spells that is the virtual antithesis of Guy Fawkes Day. Sharpe analyzes the role of Guy Fawkes Day in defining an emerging British Protestant nationalism against the "Evil Empire" of Catholicism and, somewhat weakly, draws parallels with the West's contemporary ideological battle against radical Islam. Although one gets the feeling that the first Guy Fawkes Day was the most exciting, Sharpe's erudite but light-handed account makes for an intriguing cultural history. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
Sharpe's readable little book sheds light on the history, myth and fiction surrounding the conspiracy and its enduring marks in the culture today.
--John H. Carroll (Catholic News Service 20060209)

A reminder that such religiously inspired terrorism is part of the history of the modern West.
--Peter Steinfels (New York Times 20060427)

[Sharpe's] lively short book is a compressed cultural history of Guy Fawkes Day...There is plenty of interest in his analysis of the changing character of a major popular festival.
--Eamon Duffy (New York Review of Books )

James Sharpe has written an engaging essay on the changing meaning over the centuries of Guy Fawkes Day, the commemoration on November 5 of England's deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot...Sharpe's enjoyable book traces the different ways in which the date has been celebrated between the seventeenth century and modern times.
--Keith Thomas (New York Review of Books )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (November 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674019350
• ISBN-13: 978-0674019355
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #959,651 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remember is worth Remembering, November 5, 2008

By	John Beckham "John W Beckham" (Akron, OH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Remember Remember by James Sharpe is a engaging read about the celebrations of the November 5th Plot through the ages. The events of 1605 are studied as they happened, and as they were celebrated in the decades and centuries following. English anti-Catholicism, or anti-popery are judged in terms of who was being burnt in effigy, so the role of holiday symbolism in controlling the masses is central. From a patriotic holiday in its early days, degenerating into an excuse for a drunken brawl as the centuries passed Guy's day is show to be an evolving holiday. There are some fun chapters on fireworks manufacture, but they seem to be a bit afield of the topic at hand, but do make for amusing reading. Torture, in particular Drawn and Quartered scenes are done in detail the victorians would have put on a top shelf, in the back.... REMEMBER REMEMBER is a good read.