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1AsYouKnow_Bob
I just spotted a new title at my public library: The English Civil War, a big fat general history - subtitled "Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers, and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain".
2Eurydice
It seems appallingly rated, by two of the three LT owners. Did you happen to get to read any of it?
3AsYouKnow_Bob
Well, I took it out, and I've played with it a bit, but won't get to it (partially on the strength of the LT ratings).
My '17th century' book for the week turns out to be Lisa Jardine's Ingenious Pursuits, which just arrived via BookMooch.
My '17th century' book for the week turns out to be Lisa Jardine's Ingenious Pursuits, which just arrived via BookMooch.
4Rodster First Message
I assume this is the same book published here in the UK as "The English civil war: a people's history". I have bought this but haven't read it yet. Purkiss seems to be a revisionist historian with a habit of having a crack at Christopher Hill.
I wouldn't put too much store by the ratings of a few librarythingers. The reviews in the media have been very good; this is what one book reviewer wrote:
"Based on excellent reviews and an interest in the subject, I set out to purchase Diane Purkiss's The English Civil War: A People's History."
A short review in the UK paper The Guardian for the paperback edition reads:
"One hardly expects a 600-page tome on the English civil war to read like a thriller, but Purkiss states in her prologue her intention to write a different kind of history, to restore to the fore "a class of person whose historical significance is usually regarded as slight, but who lived and suffered through the war just as their more powerful contemporaries did".
So while there is plenty here on Charles (neurotic but oddly likable) and Cromwell, plus gripping re-enactments of confused battles, gross-out moments of botched disembowelments and brilliant detail of lead saints being turned into bullets, this is also history as "a guide to human nature". Women abound, as preachers, nurses, cooks, political ideologues, revealing the reality of life during a violent and desecrating war.
She is particularly brilliant on London, which reeks and roars with smells and sounds. The ending may not provide a cliffhanger (the king dies), but that doesn't stop this "people's history" being exactly what Purkiss intended: a seductive and gripping narrative that gives insight into humanity and into life - both past and present."
A longer review of the hardback is here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1772475,00.html
I wouldn't put too much store by the ratings of a few librarythingers. The reviews in the media have been very good; this is what one book reviewer wrote:
"Based on excellent reviews and an interest in the subject, I set out to purchase Diane Purkiss's The English Civil War: A People's History."
A short review in the UK paper The Guardian for the paperback edition reads:
"One hardly expects a 600-page tome on the English civil war to read like a thriller, but Purkiss states in her prologue her intention to write a different kind of history, to restore to the fore "a class of person whose historical significance is usually regarded as slight, but who lived and suffered through the war just as their more powerful contemporaries did".
So while there is plenty here on Charles (neurotic but oddly likable) and Cromwell, plus gripping re-enactments of confused battles, gross-out moments of botched disembowelments and brilliant detail of lead saints being turned into bullets, this is also history as "a guide to human nature". Women abound, as preachers, nurses, cooks, political ideologues, revealing the reality of life during a violent and desecrating war.
She is particularly brilliant on London, which reeks and roars with smells and sounds. The ending may not provide a cliffhanger (the king dies), but that doesn't stop this "people's history" being exactly what Purkiss intended: a seductive and gripping narrative that gives insight into humanity and into life - both past and present."
A longer review of the hardback is here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1772475,00.html
5AsYouKnow_Bob
Thanks for that, and for the link to the Guardian. I may yet take another crack at the Purkiss..
