Ian Mortimer

This is a standard Ian Mortimer book: Meticulously researched, well-written, fixated on minor details, and (probably partly as a result) full of enough crazy hypotheses to staff a whole compound full of survivalists.

One example will have to serve. Mortimer's Appendix II is about the question of who was Richard II's lawful heir. In an extremely irritating act, on p. 366, Mortimer says to go read some magazine article he wrote for his real proof. You know, do you not, Mr. Mortimer, that we show more paid for this book to get the answers, not to be fobbed off on some magazine we may not be able to find?

But Mortimer offers some of the basis for his argument, in a claim that a certain source is actually a modified copy of an earlier source, and that the modified copy contains an incorrect date. So he's hypothesized an earlier source, and then corrected its reading -- and then bases the rest of his argument on the exact force of the Latin word autem.

It's an interesting reconstruction, but it's simply too long a chain of logic to be compelling. At least to me.

The result of this sort of opinion-itis is that Mortimer seems almost to turn the 1390s into a persistent duel between King Richard II and his cousin Henry of Derby (the future Henry IV). I frankly don't buy it.

It all depends on what sort of person Richard II was. In this, I agree with Mortimer: Richard II was an egotistical, narcissistic, empathy-free, irrational, bigoted ignoramus (if it sounds like a description of a certain twenty-first century American president -- yes, I think Richard II does resemble President Narceissistic Personality Disorder).

But the thing about a king with a personality disorder is that things don't have to be personal. Richard II's behavior toward Henry is sufficiently explained by Richard's "It's All About Me" attitude. Anything that interfered with his status -- such as Henry's wealth, or the fact that Henry was a fine soldier and Richard wasn't good at much of anything -- was a threat, and was treated as such.

This is not to deny Henry's multiple skills. He does seem to have been unusually learned for a member of the fourteenth century nobility, and he was indeed a fine soldier, and he had seen more of the world than almost anyone. Perhaps it was all the risks he had survived up to 1399 that made him take the supreme risk of overthrowing Richard II.

For that, we should all be grateful. The overthrow of Richard II was hardly a Glorious Revolution, but it did move England a little more toward a representative government.

Once Henry became king, he made mistakes. Mortimer admits some of them, but he really doesn't pay enough attention to others. When he executed Archbishop Scrope of York and instantly became sick, it left the impression of heaven's judgment upon him. Mortimer, I think, badly under-appreciates this. Do I think Henry's sickness was actually divine punishment? No. Do I think most Englishmen viewed it so? You bet they did. It was an incredibly damaging mistake, and yet Mortimer seems to view it as necessary and reasonable.

Henry IV's real triumph was not so much his reign as the fact that he survived to die in his bed, and to have his son succeed peacefully. In a period when overthrowing monarchs was almost a British sport (with Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III all being overthrown at least one, and Henry being overthrown twice), that is in itself a substantial accomplishment. I can't help but think that a better biography would have shown that more clearly. show less

Ian Mortimer has taken me on yet another journey, and what a journey it was. The non-fiction books of this series feel like an adventure – of course they do, because I am traveling back in time!

“the past is best viewed close up and personally - in contrast to traditional history, which emphasises the value of objectivity and distance.”

The setup is familiar from the earlier books: descriptions of cities, people, their way of life, what to wear, what to eat and drink, how to travel, show more where to stay, what laws to obey, how much to pay for things.

This is more than a guidebook, of course. Ian Mortimer’s writing is intimate, humane, at times sarcastic; there is always sympathy for our ancestors, they are neither weird nor ignorant, they just are.

Second half of the 17th century in Britain is a time of great change: the beginnings of rationalism and science as we know it, there is a sense of wonder and discovery; the end of an absolute monarchy and the first imaginings of the social contract. With the restoration of monarchy and the fall of the Puritanical Commonwealth, people can go to the theatre again, listen to music more freely… and not get executed for adultery. (Hmmm… why does this sound familiar to me, a traveler from the 21st century?)
But women still get burned alive for killing their husbands – because it’s treason, even if he is an abuser and it was self-defence. And they hang students that ridicule religion after too many drinks.

This book is full of details, details, details. I think every reader will find things to love and be especially interested in, especially moved by. These are mine, in no particular order:

📖 The descriptions of London are lovely. The rebuilding after the Great Fire of London in 1666 was impressively fast. Also, this was then people in Britain started getting fire insurance. (Sensible.)

Here is some advice on how to preserve your inn while the rest of the town is on fire:
“He told me, by the help of some friends hoisting some hogsheads of beer out of the cellar and, being very diligent to cool those parts of the house that were very hot, they did preserve it.”
“Surely this is one of the greatest events in the annals of British fire-fighting,” comments the author.

📖 The child mortality rates are simply staggering. “37 per cent of all the children born in England do not make it to the age of fifteen.”

📖 The inequality between the sexes “amounts to sexism on a scale that you will barely be able to countenance.”
And legally, as a woman you can’t do anything at all unless your husband/father/some other dude with power over you says yes.
“What matters is that the law justifies the husband’s actions against his wife so completely that it makes him arrogant and uncompromising.”
Still, contemporary travelers note that women in Britain have more liberty than in other countries - they go places! by themselves! Amazing, right? And women begin to act on stage; to earn money as professional painters; to publish more books and plays.

📖 Servants:
“If you want to know what life in service is like for many women, think in terms of Cinderella’s daily grind of scouring, scrubbing, washing and polishing from before dawn to late at night - and having to comb the lice out of the hair of a man who beats you and forces you to have sex with him.”

📖 POC:
The concept of racism as we understand it does not exist yet. There are preconceptions about POC that are “deeply unpleasant”. I’m guessing that people are aware that there is slavery overseas that is financing their fine lifestyle, but they’d rather not think about it – and besides, they are not “like us.” There is debate on whether slaves should be considered free once they come to England (since there is no slavery there officially). What about those POC that have been baptised? Surely it’s wrong if a Christian enslaves another Christian. Interestingly enough, there are recorded legal cases with judges thinking like that, so that slaves are freed. Yes, sometimes there is hope for humanity...

📖 Don’t get me started on duels! It’s a miracle there were any earls and dukes left alive in Britain.

📖 Law and justice:
“If it is fairness you want from your legal system, I suggest you visit a period of history that prioritises the person over property, reality over religion, science over superstition, equity over influence and fairness over the process of law. In finding such a time, I wish you luck.”

📖 Beauty products:
“Puppy-oil” is distilled dog. No, I am not kidding. Girls, you are supposed to put that on your face and you’ll be beautiful. No comments.

📖 Cool new stuff:
Champagne! Fountain pens! Public transport! Coffee houses! Tea! First museums! (The museum geek says: this section should have been longer.) First public concerts!

This review is getting way too long, time to wrap up… I am kind of sad that I only have one book left in this series.

I love the closing lines of the last chapter, as the time traveler prepares to go to bed: “But therin lies a question: what does the day ahead hold? So many things, so many.”

And this last from the author:
“If you listen carefully at the door to the past, what you hear most - above all the distant sounds of daily life and death - is the beating of the most unstoppable heart.” show less

I liked a lot about the Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain, mainly the details about daily life and travel that give context to one of my favorite eras of literature back in my university days. The topics are fairly wide-ranging and do give a good picture of how society was changing in the early modern era.

There is a lot to not like, too. There are no maps or diagrams, which are sorely needed when describing the spread of the Great Fire of London in 1666, or comparing different show more architectural styles that were coming into vogue. While there are color plates with portraits of famous people or photos of significant buildings or art, much is assumed the reader will already be familiar with or has readily accessible. (Frankly, I had a difficult time tracking down easy-reference maps of London in 1666.)

It would have also been very useful to have a list of people featured with brief descriptions. There is a bibliography, but not a good descriptive list of who people are, when they lived, or what they did. Since Mortimer relies on many different sources and jumps between them according to topic, he also jumps between years, and it can be difficult to keep track of everyone.

While this uses a "Time Traveler Guide" concept, it assumes the time traveler is a wealthy white male. Topics about women or minorities - or the vast majority of ordinary men - only come up as they are relevant to the assumed time traveler. This is less than ideal, and was frustrating when I wanted to know about certain very ordinary facts of life. Mortimer goes into great detail about toilet things - he mentions shitting in fireplaces, muckrakers, even men's drawers and other underclothes - but he spares not a single word about menstruation. It seems this is pretty vital information for any time traveler who menstruates, no?

Further, there were two places where Mortimer's white-male interests were painfully clear and made me distrust most of his social commentary: one, he describes how the social structure of the time was misogynistic as an effect of its patriarchy and the Great Chain of Being, then denies that this is actually misogyny since people don't really hate women and besides, women themselves think they are lesser and impure (has Mortimer ever really engaged with the concept of structural misogyny?); two, in the brief section on ethnic minorities, he talks about slavery and explains that non-white people are typically foreign visitors and treated badly, or enslaved people from The Plantations (ie: colonies), and they have no freedom, yet he also describes several black servants who live freely in their own homes when not at work, just like white servants, and seemingly not actually enslaved. Both times, his descriptions and his commentary are at odds, and he dismisses the issues as not relevant.

Most of the book seems to come from three places: Samuel Pepys's and John Evelyn's diaries for daily life in London, and Celia Fienne's journal for descriptions of other places. Where sources diverge, they are mainly also wealthy men and usually of London. It is therefore somewhat understandable that so much of the focus of the book is on the upper classes in London and especially men, but nonetheless this seems to negate the whole point of a Time Traveler's Guide.

Besides, I know for a fact that Pepys referred to his wife's menstruation (he calls it her Mois and her "old trouble") and even John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, refers to it in his poetry, which Mortimer refers to multiple times for its usefulness in shedding light on less socially acceptable opinions. This is only one thing I found to be a noticeable gap in the book, but what else is missing? Why is there so little focus on how ordinary people engaged with the many diversions that the wealthy did? Why is it titled "Restoration Britain" when it's more truly "Restoration London, with occasional sidetrips to look at Scotland through fieldglasses or maybe picnic in Oxford".

I wish the book had been better. It could have been. But the dismissal of women and lack of concern for minorities, except when either affect Mortimer's imagined self, means I can't recommend this book or series to anyone, and I have to hope that something better exists. show less

I love the idea of writing time traveller’s guides to the past. The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century was brilliant, and I am glad that Ian Mortimer kept writing. Yes, please, let’s not think about history as facts, facts, facts and numbers, numbers, numbers, but as something real people lived through, as history was their “here and now”. It’s fascinating how well this book succeeds in transporting the reader to show more Elizabethan England.

I liked the description of people becoming more aware of their place in history and the growing interest in recording things that might otherwise be lost.

There were so many things to learn, to wonder at, and to revisit. I think my only complaint is that the book was too short – I wanted more of everything, more details, more geekiness. (The trouble with reading non-fiction as e-books it that I always forget about the space needed for the footnotes, and then I suddenly find myself finishing the book… What, already? Noooo…)

Here are just a few of the things that stayed with me (I took A LOT of notes ;)):

- Isabella Whitney published the first volume of verse by an Englishwoman. She was a servant who taught herself to write, and this is awesome. Then there was Emilia Lanier, who argued passionately against women’s supposed inferiority. Why wasn’t this in my schoolbooks? (That was a rhetorical question.)
- I knew about the persecution of Catholics and Protestants, but I had no idea of the growing scope and brutality.
- The book also debunks the myth that the English did not travel much before the Industrial Revolution.
- Another myth: everyone and everything stank and nobody cared. It was a question of class more than anything else.
- Character witnesses at ecclesiastical courts probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is appalling. Basically, if you are accused of adultery and can produce the required number of people who will swear that you have great morals, you will be found innocent. If your lover can’t do the same, they will be found guilty. Ouch.
- It’s ok to be a witch! Really. Unless you summon evil spirits and kill someone by magic, that is – that's against the law.
- I loved the author’s asides. Here, he is citing from a dialogue book - ladies and gentlemen go fishing together, and one lady gets a fish: “To which the second gentleman, who is as much of a creep as the first, replies ‘O fish, thou hast had a happy destiny to be taken by so worthy a fisher. Thou couldst never have had a better end.’ “ : )))

I am sure I’ll be happily reading and rereading the whole series, these books are a delight. show less