"Innovation" by Peter Ackroyd

For England and Britain, it was a century that began with Victoria on the throne – the second longest reigning monarch – and ended with Elizabeth, now the longest reigning monarch. In between were two world wars, the rise of the Labour Party, the Great Depression, the decline of the old, landed aristocracy, the vote for women, the first woman prime minister, and social change on a scale previously unimaginable. Telling the story of England in the 20^th century is British author Peter Ackroyd, finishing his grand historical series with Innovation: The History of England Volume VI. 

The sheer breadth of this series is rather astonishing. Like he’s done with its predecessors, Innovation is written in a lively, comprehensive style, focusing on the political history of England while paying at least some attention to social and cultural. In other words, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones get sufficient attention, but don’t expect much detail. (Ackroyd also emphasizes that this is a history of England, not Britain; he includes information on Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland / Ireland only when they might be important to English history.)

 

Ackroyd’s England is familiar and yet it’s not. He fills in well-known stories with unexpected details, even as he paints with a broad brush. Winston Churchill is portrayed, failures and all (and he had his share of failures). He provides an account of each parliamentary election and keeps the story fast-paced enough so that it doesn’t become repetitious. Margaret Thatcher is treated with more balance that I expected; she was never popular with the literary and artistic elites in Britain and remains an object of ire. But Ackroyd gives her what she’s due; she revolutionized Britain and many have never forgiven her. 

 

Peter Ackroyd

The highlights of the work are the events leading up to World War II; how an entire generation became disillusioned after the first world war; how the music of the 1960s developed and became known worldwide; and how Thatcher faced down Argentina’s military junta in the Falklands.

 

The author is one of Britain’s most prolific popular historians. In addition to his history of England series, he’s also written biographies of Charles Dickens and the artist J.M.W. Turner, among several others; a history of London (and a history of London beneath the streets); and many other works. 

 

Innovation and the first five volumes in the series are what historians would call “popular history,” but they provide a solid overview of the history of England from prehistoric to contemporary times. His broad grasp of so much history is rather astonishing, and he shares it all. (And I keep wondering what his office must have looked like to accommodate all of the research.)

 

Related:

 

My review of Dominion by Peter Ackroyd.

 

My review of Revolution by Peter Ackroyd.

 

My review of Rebellion by Peter Ackroyd.

 

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

 

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

 

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

"Dominion" by Peter Ackroyd

You might want to call this “everything you wanted to know about British parliamentary history in the 19^thcentury, and then some.”

British author Peter Ackroyd is beginning to approach the end of his multi-volume history of England. Each of the first four volumes has a one-word title (followed by a long subtitle): Foundation, Tudors, Rebellion, and Revolution. The single words of the titles serve as both descriptions of the content and summary themes. 

The fifth and most recent is Dominion: The History of England from the Battle of Waterloo to Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. It covers most of 19^thcentury British history. If there is a primary focus to the volume, it is the push and pull and British politics and parliamentary changes that occurred during the century. 

We follow, in detail, the rise and fall and occasional resurrection of all of the prime ministers and the governments. We see the considerable amount of political activism that occurred during the period, like the Chartist movement that sought, among other things, universal male suffrage. We read about the political protests, often fueled by the industrial and technological changes, that sometimes ended in bloodshed. Dominionalso includes succinct accounts of the significant wars Britain experienced during the Victorian period – the Crimean War, the rebellion in India, and the Boer War.

Ackroyd writes with a comprehensive view and a rather sparkling (and witty) style. A history like this one and its cohorts is not an easy thing to write; in a sense, the author has to hold together all of the information being covered even as he’s writing about a specific event or month or year. 

But Dominion is different from its predecessors. The difference is both significant and surprising, and it lies in what is not included. The previous volumes have covered literary and cultural history, in addition to political, technological, and military events. Dominion has a few scattered quotes from Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackery, George Eliot, and a few other literary figures, but that’s all that’s included. To get two-and-a-half pages on a music hall performer and essentially ignore what Victorian England produced in literature is not a minor omission. The previous volumes included literary history.

Peter Ackroyd

So what you will not find in Dominion, except for the occasional quotation, is Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, the Brontes, and others. Dickens fares slightly better than the rest, but only slightly. Even popular culture is shorted, with a single reference to Gilbert and Sullivan and none at all to Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes stories.

The author is one of Britain’s most prolific popular historians. In addition to his history of England series, he’s also written biographies of Charles Dickens and the artist J.M.W. Turner, among several others; a history of London (and a history of London beneath the streets); and many other works. 

Dominion stands as an in-depth and lively summary of 19^thBritish political history. In that regard, it is comprehensive and well-written. But it is disappointing that Ackroyd didn’t turn his keen eye to the literature of the period as well.

Related:

My review of Revolution by Peter Ackroyd.

My review of Rebellion by Peter Ackroyd.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Top illustration: Queen Victoria, who gave her name to the period.

“Revolution” by Peter Ackroyd

From 1688 to 1815 occurred some of the most tumultuous events that shaped the modern world. James IIwas replaced on the English throne by William and Mary; France under Louis XIV became the pivot of war in Europe; The Seven Years War (aka the French and Indian War) reshaped the political map of North America; the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution; the American Revolution; the French Revolution and Reign of Terror; and the Napoleonic era, finding ending in the fields outside Brussels. 

In Revolution: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo, British author Peter Ackroyddepicts the story of monarchs, war, societal upheavals, and cultural changes. Continuing his series on the history of England (this is volume 4), he tells a riveting story.

The religious wars that started with the Reformation in the early 1500s finally played themselves out in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James II was a bit too Catholic and finds himself replaced by William of Orange and James’s daughter Mary. Childless, they’re succeeded by Queen Anne, but she, too, dies without an heir (only one child survived infancy and he died young). Parliament turned to a distant relation in the German state of Hanover,George I (1660-1727), who was staunchly Protestant. But if there is a central figure in this period, it is George III (1738-1820), the nemesis of the American colonists, and the monarch whose bouts with madness caused no end of reactions and responses.

Ackroyd pays close attention to the significant events affecting business and industry during the period. The Bank of England was founded. Freedom of the press emerged in England less as a declared right and more because Parliament forgot to extend a law regulating printing (Ackroyd notes the almost immediate effect of an explosion of news sheets had on politics). The Industrial Revolution emerged as a significant factor in society, including the manufacture of Josiah Wedgewood’s plates, mechanized spinning of textiles, and the steam engine. 

Social justice issues, like the call for the abolition of slavery, began to be sounded by people like William Wilberforce and Hannah More. And this was the era of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s plays, Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, the speeches of Edmund Burke, and the writings of Adam Smith. And in the 1790s, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge helped give birth to Romanticism.

Peter Ackroyd

Political and economic changes led to almost ongoing social unrest. The upper classes in England feared (and understandably so) the spread of the French Revolution, but crop failures, economic downturns, political changes, and even rumors fueled riots and protests.

Ackroyd points out that the American Revolution was the first political change that wasn’t about installing a new monarch or a new church, inspiring many revolutions and political changes that followed.

The author is one of Britain’s most prolific popular historians. In addition to his history of England series, he’s also written biographies of Charles Dickens and the artist J.M.W. Turner, among several others; a history of London (and a history of London beneath the streets); and many other works.

The period from 1688 to 1815 was exciting and momentous, and Ackroyd’s Revolution brings it fully to life.

Related:

My review of Rebellion by Peter Ackroyd.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Top illustration: George III’s coronation portrait (1762) by Allan Ramsay.

A Wild Century: “Rebellion” by Peter Ackroyd

The 1600s were a tumultuous century in British history. The Tudor dynasty came to an end with the death of Elizabeth I, and the Stuarts ascended the throne. Disagreements between king and Parliament increased, with the eventual explosion of civil war in the 1640s and the Cromwell protectorate in the 1650s. Then came the Restoration, with Charles II crowned king. Upon his death, his brother James II became king, but his Catholicism and imperial ways were too much. William and Mary, James II’s son-in-law and daughter, ascended the throne in the relatively bloodless Glorious Revolution of 1688.

This is the political history of the century told in detail by writer Peter Ackroyd in Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution. It is the third volume in his history of England, following Foundation and Tudors.

Rebellion is firmly in the tradition of popular history writing in the U.K., and Ackroyd is one of its most prolific writers. The book is a lively, exciting story, and it draws upon a lively, exciting period. Ackroyd writes history with all of its warts, and none of the romanticizing that many popular writers might be prone to.

The most detailed and extensive section is the era that was the most pivotal – roughly 1640 to 1660, covering the fight between Charles I and the royalists on one side and the Independents and Presbyterians of Parliament on the other. The detailed discussion provides a solid summary of both causes and effects, and emphasizes that the it wasn’t a simple “crown versus Parliament” fight. Loyalties could be fluid, and both sides were guilty of extreme positions and acts. It was a time of extremes.

The 17^th century was also a time when some of the greatest literature and theological statements in English history was created. Shakespeare wrote some of his most famous plays. A royal commission of scholars translated and created the King James Version of the Bible. Thomas Hobbes wrote his  Leviathan. Milton wrote his incredible poetry (and spent a time in prison for siding with Cromwell and Parliament). John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. Theologians spent five years (meeting at Hampton Court Palace) creating the Westminster Confession.

Peter Ackroyd

While the focus is political history (and particularly the political history of England), Rebellion also provides context of what was happening in the daily lives of the people. We learn about crop failures; the growth, contraction, and growth of trade; the return of the plague; and the first of London in 1666 (both King Charles II and his brother worked to fight the fire, which burned for three September days).

But it’s the political history where Ackroyd excels and tells his best stories. We learn of the workings and the corruption of the royal courts, the intrigues with various European powers and how that played out in domestic politics, and the inner workings o parliament and how it came to assume power and fight for power.

It’s a rich, exciting story, and Ackroyd tells it extremely well.

Related:

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Painting: Charles I by a follower of Anthony van Dyck (1636).

Chaucer and The First Great English Poem

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour,

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne…

Geoffrey Chaucer

Thus begins the first great English poem. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1343-1400) wasn’t the first poem in what we call Middle English, nor did it cause English to become the official language of the British Isles. What it did do, says author Peter Ackroyd in his modern English prose translation, was mark the emergence of English as the language that was becoming what most people spoke. The royal court still conducted its business in French, but that, too, was changing.

It is a work that stopped as a work in progress. Chaucer completed the General Prologue and less than a third of the planned 120 tales, stories told by a group of pilgrims traveling to and from St. Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury Cathedral. The pilgrims represent virtually all levels of society – merchants, knights, religious figures, tradesman, lawyers, doctors, and more. Chaucer didn’t confine himself to men – in fact, the Wife of Bath is one of the most memorable characters in the entire poem, and with a prologue that is the longest of any of the tales.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.