I don't usually make much time for reading, and studying factual matters ranks low on the list of my priorities. But I was interested in this book as it brings together the origins of America with the influences of Britain monarchy and government, and as an ex-pat living in the USA for twenty years the topic is close to home.
I should also say that I am left-brained, an engineer with a love of mathematics, and paid little attention to the arts, such as history, when I was educated in England. This book changed my attitude to history, making it alive and driving my curio(u)sity to keep reading and discovering more of which I was previously unaware. Such an awakening later on in life I did not expect!
John Hancock starts with a good grounding of the situation in Europe and Britain from which America came to be. I had never understood the intricacies of the change from Catholicism to the Church of England, rather than dismissively to think that it was simply to satisfy Henry VIII's desires for divorce. This book set me straight on that, along with many other mis- or non-conceptions I may have been harbo(u)ring.
I don't want you to think from this description that the book is anything like the dry old history books which I chose to ignore in class (sorry, Whoccy RIP!). I thoroughly enjoyed it, finding it hard to put down, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to you if you have any interest in the topic or not.
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