Product Description

Occupying the top spot on most undergraduate reading lists for this period, and widely used by teachers and students on A-level courses on early modern British history, The Stuart Age is the definitive history of England’s century of civil war and revolution.

This new edition clarifies and makes sense of recent historiographical trends over the last decade. In a substantial new introduction to the volume, Barry Coward provides an important assessment of the impact of new revisionist approaches on historical writing about the Stuart age.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205020 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Review

Reviews of the previous editions:

"What an excellent book this is. The second edition provides without doubt the most up-to-date and the most judicious overview of the seventeenth century we are likely to have for many years" History Today

"Anyone who reads it and is bored has no interest in Stuart England"Clayton Roberts

"This is the introductory survey of seventeenth-century English history for which teachers in sixth form and tertiary education have been waiting for years."History

From the Back Cover

For over twenty years Barry Coward’s The Stuart Age has been widely recognised as the best general book on the period.

"This is the introductory survey of seventeenth-century English history for which teachers in sixth form and tertiary education have been waiting for years."

(John Morrill in History)

"It can be recommended with confidence to undergraduates and sixth-formers as much the most comprehensive and up-to-date textbook on Stuart England." (John Miller in The Times Higher Educational Supplement).

"Here at last is an intelligible, enjoyable and thorough survey of a period that has become so baffling to the newcomer." (Blair Worden in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History)

"What an excellent book this is. The second edition provides without doubt the most up-to-date and most judicious overview of the seventeenth century we are likely to have for many years…" (Jeremy Gregory in History Today)

The Stuart age is still at the centre of the most lively and intellectually exciting debates of any period of British history. The flood of new research on seventeenth-century Britain has necessitated a re-examination of existing historical interpretations. To take account of this Barry Coward has written a new extended Preface for this Third Edition.

The Stuart Age provides an accessible introduction to many major themes of the period including: the causes of the English Civil War, the nature of the English Revolution; the aims and achievements of Oliver Cromwell; the continuation of religious passion in the politics of Restoration England; and the impact on Britain of the Glorious Revolution. In it Cowards also covers the relevant history of Scotland and Ireland and gives comprehensive treatment of economic, social, intellectual, as well as political and religious history. The Third Edition also includes a useful, detailed Timeline.

The new Preface assesses the impact on the history of the period of major historiographical trends like the invention of New British History, the influence of New Historicism, the renewed emphasis on the importance of ideology and beliefs in explaining historical events, and new approaches pioneered by social historians to political culture. It also provides extensive guidance to many books and articles that have been published in the last ten years, supplementing the Bibliographical Essay at the end of the book.

Barry Coward is Reader in History at Birkbeck College, University of London. His other publications include Oliver Cromwell (Longman, 1991) and his most recent books are The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester UP, 2002) and A Companion to Stuart Britain (Blackwell, 2003).

About the Author
Barry Coward is Reader in History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is on the advisory panel of BBC History Magazine. His previous books include Oliver Cromwell (Longman, 2000) and The Cromwellian Protectorate (MUP, 2002).

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Customer Reviews

A good academic book, fit for the general reader...
This book would seem to be aimed for the academic/college reader, full of the facts and dates, although even myself (who never even did GCSE History) found it a very interesting read.

Covering what has to be seen as the more "colourful" part of the British history... (The very idea of a Scottish king on the English throne... and even a civil war thrown in) the facts alone make for a great read, and the author keeps the history flowing and any good "story-teller" should.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn more about the facts and stories about this important age in English (and British) history.

Lee Kershaw