No comments about Rural Rides (Equestrian Travel Classics).

5 comments about Royal Survivor: The Life of Charles II.

1. I found Stephen Coote's biography on King Charles II to be quite good. The book proves to be well written and well researched. The author managed to bring out the character and personality of this king in his biography that proves to be both informative and entertaining. I believed that the key element of this biography is the high readability of the book to almost anyone interested in the subject matter. Its a book written for the general masses, not for scholars or footnotes fanatics.
   
   If there's a general weakness in the author's approach, it seem like the author appears to excused Charles' many extra-sexual activities. Coote regards Charles' high sexual activities as result of his dire poverty-stricken existence during his long exile. He seem to have more mistresses then most other Kings of England put together. King Charles II that come from this book appears to be a man, highly intelligent, got the "common touch" and acute in politics but he's also lazy, rash and live for the moment type of individual. He have endured what most Kings of England never had to endured and that created some interesting contradictions in his character which the book goes into very nicely.
   
   This biography come highly recommended to anyone interested in this time period.



2. An amazing story of a prince gone into exile after his father's execution by parliament and his wanderings through Europe. Then his restoration to his father's throne as Charles II. He had an amazing sexual appetite, which led to all the illegitimate children, including the doomed, Duke of Monmouth. Charles II seemed to enjoy life, dodged parliament to the end and ultimately died a Catholic, and paved the way to his son, Monmouth's demise; his brother, James II's abdication; and his nephew, William III of Orange ascension to the throne. Great book. The house of Stuart could never be called boring.



3. Stephen Coote's biography on Charles II is an enjoyable story of a man who the author has titled `Royal Survivor'. This book, which is just under 400 pages (hardback format), takes the reader on a trip with Charles II, through his trials and tribulations, his victories and his defeats. We follow Charles II from boyhood, the death of his father and his attempt to re-claim the throne which met its end at the Battle of Worcester. Then the author takes us along with Charles II as he makes an exciting escape from England back into exile and then his triumphant return to the Throne of England.

   We then settle into an account of Charles II as the King of England, his conflicts with Parliament and the tales of his many mistresses. We follow the story through the period of the Restoration and other great events that occurred during his reign. After finishing this book I really believed that I had gained a better understanding of the subject and the times. In fact I came away from feeling that the King wasn't all that bad and maybe he did try to do his best for England (within a certain framework).

   Not only did the book offer an account of Charles II and his private life but we are also provided with accounts of his struggle with the Dutch provinces, France and its King, along with the plague and the Great Fire of London. I would not consider the book to be an in-depth biography but more of a narrative history offering the reader a general overview of the subject. That said, I still found the story interesting and learnt quite a few things along the way.

   I believe that anyone who enjoys good history without too many dates and names will be quite taken with this account of Charles II. The book provides the reader with a free flowing narrative, holding your interest throughout the whole story. The book is well presented and has a number of black and white photographs of the period. Overall this is an excellent story and well worth the time to read.




4. Stephen Coote's biography of Charles II, _Royal Survivor_, is a superb story in every respect. It suffers a lack of the kings' portraits, but I suspect this is no fault of Mr. Coote who excels beautifully in bringing a wealth of information to his readers. The biographer's evenhanded approach nicely integrates Charles' personal life with late 17th century politics, economics, science, medicine, social studies and religion. Mr. Coote spends a number of pages discussing Catholic-Anglican antagonism, showing again that moderns have gained little insight from our ancestors' mistakes.

   The book has very few weaknesses. A royal genealogy diagram would be helpful, but many are available. A few parallels with modern history are neatly if briefly presented. Little is written about those close to Charles who survived his death in 1685, his queen, mistresses and children. And I was curious if those who helped save Charles' life during his flight in 1651 were suitably rewarded once he became king!

   I very much enjoyed Mr. Coote's style and presentation. He reads well and easily, and I often had trouble setting his book down, wondering what would happen. The author is particularly strong when explaining European politics and religious doctrines, ordinarily dry and difficult topics. His book is highly recommended.




5. This book has gotten good reviews in this forum, but I'd like to offer a dissenting viewpoint. This book may have a "lively" style but it is poorly researched. It appears as though the author did no research in archives. The material has all appeared elsewhere. The bulk of the book is based on secondary sources. Fully 85% of the footnotes are from secondary sources. Some quotations are rendered with no footnotes at all. The footnotes aren't even consistent in their form. This a poorly researched & sloppily edited book. There are much better books on Charles that you can get.

No comments about Life Of Sir Walter Raleigh 1552 to 1618 Part Two.

1 comments about Charles: The Untold Story.

1. As a Diana-partisan, I was prepared to dislike this book because it was written by an author who is a friend of Prince Charles. To my delight, I found the book to be an interesting, even-handed account of the very human foibles of two people and not a biased excuse for Prince Charles. (Well, not quite--Benson did try that tired excuse that Diana tricked the naive Charles into marriage, but he made only the weakest attempt at it.) For that reason and for the interesting insight this book contains, I recommend it. The only reason why I didn't give the book a higher rating is the few minor factual errors that should have been caught by a good proof-reader knowledgeable in the history of the British Royal family.

1 comments about Captain Cook's World: Maps of the Life and Voyages of James Cook R. N..

1. This book caught my eye at Pearl Harbor on my first significant visit to Hawaii a few weeks ago. Had to order it as soon as I got home. Outstanding digest of Cook's lifetime of exploration. Excellent format with its mixture of concise narrative and outstanding maps. Fascinating "read", I couldn't put it down. Excellent level of detail -- enough to be truly educational -- not so much as to overload. Emotionally moving to recall standing on Hawaiian soil and try to imagine the worlds meeting in the explorations of Cook's time. This book helped stitch my own experience to the history of the explorations.

5 comments about The Nelson Touch: The Life and Legend of Horatio Nelson.

1. Novelist and historian Terry Coleman's "The Nelson Touch" may be regarded as the first of the three great biographies of Admiral Nelson published in the first decade of the 21st Century. However, in stark contrast to John Sugden's monumental two volume work (The second volume is in preparation, covering the period from 1797 to 1805, when Nelson had his greatest triumphs and defeats.) and Roger Knight's biography published last year, Coleman's extensively researched tome reads more like a negative "Cliff Notes" review of the admiral's life, focusing on Nelson's career in the 1790s and 1800s, devoting as much time to the great British admiral's flaws as well as his successes. Indeed, I suspect that the title "The Nelson Touch" is a bit misleading, since Coleman doesn't dwell much on those facets of Nelson's personality which made him into an inspirational naval commander well respected - if not loved - by his celebrated "band of brothers" such as Captains Berry, Hallowell, Hardy and Hoste, and Admirals Collingwood and Hood. Speaking of which, to my utter amazement, there is not much for the reader to discern regarding Nelson's strong ties to fellow officers such as Captains Berry and Hardy and especially, Admiral Collingwood. Only Rear Admiral Troubridge is discussed at any length, and it is more from the perspective of Nelson's perceived rivalry with Troubridge dating from the latter's appointment to the Admiralty in 1801, than the close comradeship which had developed while serving together in the Mediterranean Sea during the 1790s.
   
   Yet Coleman's negative appraisal of Nelson's life and career is important for two major reasons. First it demonstrates convincingly how disastrous Nelson's conduct was at Naples in 1799, condoning acts which would be charitably described as running counter to the spirit, if not the actual letter, of dignified conduct against the enemy; in other words, Nelson acted as a war criminal. How, you might ask? He abrogated a treaty signed by one of his subordinates and representatives of Naples's Republican government and misled defending Neapolitan and French troops holding out in impregnable forts near the city who had been guaranteed safe conduct to Toulon, but instead, found themselves sent via safe conduct only to the gallows. He also arranges for the summary execution of the Neapolitan naval officer in charge of the city's defense, who had become a close colleague and friend of Nelson's, before switching his loyalty to the Republican government. Coleman also delves deeply into Nelson's relationship with Emma Hamilton, demonstrating how it evolved slowly into a passionate love affair, beginning innocently enough via Emma's diplomatic work on behalf of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies's Bourbon royal family. At any rate, Coleman's fine scholarship puts to rest any notion that theirs was love at first sight. Despite my own misgivings regarding Coleman's coverage, I still strongly recommend this book as an excellent biography of Admiral Nelson, especially in its coverage of Nelson's actions at Naples and his love affair with Emma Hamilton.



2. I admire _The Nelson Touch_ in the way that, Nelson-like, author Terry Coleman ties up alongside and lets the broadsides rip at his subject from the get-go:
   
   "Nelson was a paramount naval genius and natural born predator, and those who look to find a saint besides will miss the man. The strength of mind is everywhere obvious. He knew he was right, and in action was daring and direct. His originality asserts itself again and again, and so does his quixotic generosity. But in private life, as in war, he was ruthless whenever he had to be, and he could be pitiless. He was a fanatic for duty, at times beyond all sense, and a royalist so infatuated with the divine right of kings that he began to see himself, in revolutionary times, as the instrument of God. This made him a good hater. He hated the American rebels of the thirteen colonies, and the harmless liberal rebels against the Bourbon king of Naples, as unforgivingly as he hated the revolutionary French and then Napoleon."
   
   That's the first paragraph from page one, and in excellent journalistic style, Coleman, having layed out his thesis, succintly expands upon it in the next 343 pages (a very small number of pages relative to most modern biographies.) Coleman does not discuss Nelson's military strategy to a great extent. Nor does he fill in the many gaps in the historical record with generalized discussions of the social milieu of the time; for example, little is known about Nelson's boyhood, and Coleman does not have any sections that choose to draw in sources about what it might have been like from contemporary accounts of other persons of the same period. The author does not bother filling in the vast background story of the sociopolitical upheavals of the time, and approaches Nelson's life with a certain expectation of familiarity on the part of the reader of its general outline. Far from detracting from its subject matter, the relative tautness and focus of this approach make it one of the most readable biographies I've encountered in recent years.
   
   What Coleman does rather superbly is go back to truly original source material on Nelson, and more or less reconstruct a portrait of the man he was. The surviving primary material, in the form of Nelson's letters and those few letters to Nelson which survive, are meticulously examined. Any contradictions and inconsistencies are investigated, the factual basis often being compared to subsequent distortions. This book might be labeled 'revisionist' because of Coleman's insistence on unraveling the origins of the many myths and distortions that have developed over the centuries concerning Nelson; however, my impression is more that Coleman simply tries to get at the truth of the matter under the layers of hogwash without any agenda per se. If that results in a revision in the general public understanding of Nelson, that's where the chips have fallen.
   
   A constant theme of the book is deconstructing the myth, the legend, the hagiography that's been built up around Nelson since his death. Indeed, Coleman manages to convey that it was Nelson's very nature that started building up the legend in the first place. It remains dubious about the extent to which Nelson's military acumen was or was not responsible for victories at St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, but there's no doubt that Nelson thought that Nelson was responsible almost wholly for those victories. (Nelson was quite fond of referring to himself in the third person.) And the tenor of the times was ripe for mythologizing a hero, particularly in a Britain that was in such dire straits in its continental struggle and in fear of popular uprisings.
   
   Nelson's strange sojourn as a sort of minister of war cum loose-cannon warlord supporting the King of Naples is given a great deal of attention. It's a sorry episode where Nelson's reactionary political leanings, love of royalty, desire for self-aggrandizement, and failure to obey his superiors combined in a rather nasty and bloody counter-revolution. The current controversy about whether Nelson's unilateral abrogation of a treaty, which resulted in the execution of several hundred prisoners who had been promised safe conduct by the British, is discussed in significantly greater detail than Nelson's fleet exploits. I came at this book without any sense of national pride (or disgust, as some contemporary Italian scholars have because of the incident, to the point of calling Nelson a war criminal) in the Nelson legend, but with considerable familiarity with his military record, and as such I found this material very interesting.
   
   What I do find somewhat missing in Coleman's account is an explanation of 'The Nelson Touch' that so inspired his contemporaries (at least the ones who didn't hate his guts). Nelson cheerfully explains it about himself in laying out his battle plans for Trafalgar, but as Coleman notes, there are zero accounts from his captains about the same meeting at which Nelson describes himself so glowingly. Was the 'Touch' an invention? If it was real, what was it about Nelson's personal qualities that made him an inspirational leader? This subject is not addressed, leading one to the conclusion that it perhaps might have been a contemporary invention of the glory-seeking Nelson and his acolytes. I don't know this to be so, but this is not the book that explores those issues. And, as noted, there is little in the way of revisionism in looking at the claims of Nelson's military genius, which are certainly overstated in many other sources and which is taken as a given by Coleman.
   
   One item of particular note: Coleman does a superb job of looking at the visual record of Nelson in terms of the contemporary portraits done of him during his lifetime. Often in biographies the illustrations are unremarked upon by the author, almost afterthoughts. Coleman treats these, too, as primary sources, and this greatly enlivens the text.
   
   Regardless of how one approaches Nelson as man or legend prior to reading this book, this is an excellent modern biography that rehumanizes him, and well recommended.



3. I don't feel outraged that Coleman's treatment of Nelson is harsh. Why make Nelson something he wasn't: a saint.



4. I notice that Joel Hayward's new book also points out Nelson's flaws as a warrior and as a captain and as an officer. Maybe Hayward wrote it all in a more balance way, and with more context, but he still said similar things to Mr Coleman. Yet Coleman seems to have been singled out for criticism for merely showing that Nelson was human and used his legal disciplinary rights more often than we assumed. Big deal. He was a great admiral but just a man.



5. Coleman has written a highly negative biography of Nelson that stresses Nelson's faults while ignoring his accomplishments. Coleman believes that Nelson was engaged in war crimes at Naples since he decieved the rebels with a truce and than slaughtered them. Also Nelson bluffed his way to victory at Coopenhagen by overstating his strength to the Danish king in order to achieve a truce. Finally Coleman is critical of the way that Nelson treated his first wife with his affair with Emma Hamilton. Even though this is a highly negative biography of Nelson it is highly readable.

4 comments about Kitchener: Architect of Victory, Artisan of Peace.

1. K was a military guy with a big moustache and similar ego whose speciality was occasionally slaughtering thousands of locals in one of the many outposts of the outsize British Empire (Sudan, Egypt, India). His training as an engineer brought a new dimension to military thinking - the importance of logistics (surely only K could have thought it possible to build a railway in order to bring his army to the battlefield). In this he was a prototype for modern military commanders like Rommel and perhaps Patton. When many predicted at the beginning of WW1 that it would be over by Christmas, he said three years. He's a hard guy to read (or even like) but if you wish to know more about his professional career this book has it all.



2. I read a review on here and chose not to read this book - boy how stupid I would have been and what I would have missed! I got this book and am beginning the final fourth: this is a comprehensive biography and a competent one. I'll say that again farther down, but this author has done a tremendous job with a remarkable life in an important time, a man at the center of many events and doings forming parts of our world and helping to define the 'our time' of those who came before us, which we inherited.
   Firstly, this author devotes an entire appendix to the sexual question, and whether or not a reader agrees with the conclusions the issue is quite addressed.
   
   Now that is remarked, time to move on: one does not have to be a detractor, busting the myths of good deeds of a life, to be a biographer, in fact most have some reason for writing on a person, often a fan or at least appreciating some things that personage did: this author has given us a very full and balanced account of a man who, while far less than perfect, gave what was needed during some difficult and climaxing British times: keen confidence and loyal leadership. K was most certainly not perfect, and Pollock shows how K made many mistakes, sometimes noticing the thing himself and regretting, and sometimes not noticing then hearing a friend point it out, then agreeing and regretting. He was great at deciding and issuing orders yet not remarkable at chatting, no manoeuvering manipulator here; not great at the rubbing elbows and chatting or curbing his tongue in subtle areas; his biggest problem came from errantly speaking his mind then finding himself used by a consumate and macchiavellian politician. K was no brilliant politician and made mistakes; but he came into his own in the Sudan command and knew how to run the India Army, or any army; he also made a huge difference in realizing what the first year of the great war would require and getting that going in the face of great opposition. The man did not lack personal and political courage.
   
   But this author has done the main job of a biographer, showing how this man came to do the achievements and leadership he did at critical times by showing the personality's development and viewpoint: showing from where and how he came, and how those he knew and events he experienced affected and formed him to be the shy yet confident man he became, learning by trial and fire as he went, with flawed facets and yet a rare magnetism and decisiveness others required, enjoyed and benefited from. If I had been a colonel recalled from a field command to plan and slave for some senior potentate, I would have enjoyed doing it for K for the same reasons his staffs appreciated him and were loyal: he earned his colonelcy and his generalship by decisive plans and actions, loyalty to friends and fellows, and a keen mind properly bent to the joint struggles and joint end. I now must go read the other biographies of this author I previously had never heard of, but I can greatly recommend this comprehensive and professionally thorough biography including the hallmarks of a well-done one: just have a read at his tremendous sources, including archives and private letters, a great lot of endnotes, bibliographies including manuscripts and newspapers of the times. Even if you care not for the man, you can get a good view of the critical and shaping times across continents between 1880 and 1916, the year K was killed with his staff upon the mined cruiser traveling to Russia for important allied meetings.
   
   This thing is huge with a ton of primary sources woven into dialog and indented paras to show us not only what they did but how these critically placed people felt about each other: this book tells the events and more, but rather than making me put it down every three pages - I would look up after twenty and realize I'm late for something.



3. Lord Kitchner has an apologist in Mr. Pollock. If you are expecting an objective historical account, I do not recommend this book. The lack of objective thought makes one suspect that the book was written during the Victorian period and not at the start of the twenty-first century. Examples abound, but I will site two as representative. Rumors that Lord K was a homosexual because he never married and was very found of young adjutants are dismissed by Mr. Pollock as a modern bias that would make anyone fond of young men and not a womanizer a homosexual. That is not historical writing from sources, it is the opinion of the author in the nature of conjecture. Secondly, Mr. Pollack dismisses the Murant incident during the Boer war as a subject for "fiction" writers, after admitting that in a suspicious case Kitchner signed the execution papers and then made himself indisposed to appeals for clemency. Why did K do that Mr. Pollock? To answer that, by historical research is your task as a historian. Instead of research we have evasion of the issue. This blot on Lord Kitchner's reputation cannot be dismissed by an objective historian via relegating it to the dustbin of history, with a comment that the incident is a good one for fiction writers.



4. Though it is now possible to recognise Kitchener as the architect of a British victory that he did not live to see in the Great War, he has often come across as a stiff, remote and unimaginative figure. This first volume of a two-part biography goes far to change that impression and portrays Kitchener as a sensitive man of high intelligence, capable of great affection, loyalty and kindness. His apparent shyness is here revealed to have been a result of chronic eye problems, which he was largely successful in covering up, while a serious facial wound left him with an almost invariably severe impression. A delightful photograph in this book, which is new to this reviewer at least, showing Kitchener beaming as he is reunited in Britain with the Cameron Highlanders who provided his personal escort in South Africa, reveals a totally different side to the conventional picture.

   This biography makes for easy reading - and is a suitable companion piece to Mr.Pollock's excellent earlier work on that other great Royal Engineer, Charles Gordon, Kitchener's idol. The life here described is one of enviable adventure, admirable courage and daunting responsibility. Kitchener emerges not just as an ideal engineer and manager, but as a man of considerable daring and initiative, with an uncanny ability to pick up languages quickly, to understand alien cultures, and to evoke loyalty from peoples of widely differing racial and religious backgrounds. His diplomatic skills are also seen to be of a high order, as exemplified by his handling of the Fashoda incident and his efforts to bring the Boer War to a negotiated settlement. Somewhat of a surprise is the extent to which strong but unostentatious religious convictions underpinned his behaviour. A virtue of this biography is that Kitchener is portrayed as a man of his time, and judged as such, without projection of twenty-first century values on him - typical being the manner in which speculations by later biographers as to possible homosexuality are robustly dismissed in an appendix. This is one of those rare biographies that one would have wished to have been considerably longer. One would have welcomed considerably more detail on the more minor battles in the Sudan, such as Firket and Um Diyaykarat. This small gripe apart, this book is a splendid treat for aficionados of the Victorian period and one looks forward with impatience to the second volume.

1 comments about Thomas Wentworth: First Earl of Strafford 1593-1641: A Revaluation.

1. Thomas Wentworth is a name probably little known to most Americans but he was one of the most important personalities that served the crown during the reign of Charles I prior to the English Civil War. C.V. Wedgwood wrote this book as a revaluation of her earlier work when she didn't have the access to many of Wentworth's papers. What we have here now is a more balanced view of Wentworth's life and his contributions to history. To many, he was known in history as Earl of Strafford although he held his earldom title for less then a year before his death at the hand of a man whom he so ably served. Some movie goers will remembered that title from that movie "Cromwell" where he make a brief appearance.
   
   The books read very easily and the author's writing skills proves to be superb. She can make the most mundane matter bit more interesting then it should be. The book appears to be well researched, you get a clear understanding of who Thomas Wentworth was and why he did what he did, as a ruthless servant of the crown and his desire for power and acknowledgement from his leige lord, Charles I. If he had survived to serve Charles I during the Civil War, he would have been a great service to him.
   
   Overall, a great book about a little known political figure who had an impact on English history.

1 comments about Burghley: William Cecil, Lord Burghley (Profiles in Power).

1. Michael A. R. Graves is one of the leading authorities on Elizabethan parliaments, so one might expect his book on the leading Elizabethan statesman to be good. And in many ways it is. Wide-ranging and erudite, in easily-digested short segments concerning various modules of William Cecil's career, 'Burghley' offers an excellent if condensed overview of the achievements of Elizabeth I's chief adviser. Unlike earlier books on the subject, 'Burghley' does not pursue every minute (and often unnecessary) aspect of his career. However, during some sections of the book, Graves' love for the minutiae of politics and economics becomes apparent, although regrettably is not likewise communicated to the reader. The final chapter is therefore extremely welcome and useful, containing a subjective but learned analysis of Burghley the man. The sheer vastness of Burghley's surviving documentation makes the task of his biographer an incredibly daunting one, and in my opinion, Graves has done a commendable job. Although not recommended for the casual reader with a passing interest in Burghley's life, the book is excellently suited to students of Elizabethan politics, for whom it was clearly written. For the purpose of last-minute cramming or essay research, this slim volume is a welcome and detailed alternative to the considerably thicker, more in-depth tomes of Hume, Read, Beckingsale, et al.

1 comments about Limeys: The Conquest of Scurvy.

1. Given the current obsession with food quality and nutrition, this timely book addresses the problem of vitamin deficiency and the quest for a cure for scurvy over the recent past. Long sea voyages by early explorers created many problems for the crews, not least of which was the debilitating effects of scurvy. Frequently fatal, symptoms included rotting of teeth, swelling of limbs and loss of blood. The story of the solution to the problem was suspected for many years as the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables, but why did it take so long to finally solve the affliction? The story is well told by Harvie, and of course is intimately linked to the development of new ways of preserving food for those long sea voyages. One outcome was the development of lime juice, hence the title of the book. But the problem recurred at the turn of the 20th century in expeditions to the arctic and antarctic, and it is thought that scurvy affected Captain Scott in his final fatal trip. It was not until the 1920's that the active ingredient , vitamin C, was isolated that the problem was finally solved. This story deserves retelling, and Harvie makes a good contribution to popularising the account. When will we see similar accounts of the conquest of rickets (vitamn D deficiency) and beri-beri (vitamin B deficiency)?