However, in the main a strictly chronological approach is retained within and between the chapters, with the whole period surveyed in 27 chapters grouped together into six parts, arranged pretty much as one would expect: the ‘background and beginnings’ of 1625-40, the war years of 1640-46, the troubled period 1646-49 (described here as ‘towards a kingless Britain’), the Commonwealth of 1649-53, the Protectorate of 1653-58, and the collapse of the Good Old Cause in 1658-60.
Very occasionally the chronological imperative is broken by a thematic arrangement – thus the Protectorate’s handling of Scotland, Ireland and Europe is largely reserved for a chapter of its own. Like the Grand Remonstrance and Clarendon’s classic account before it, the volume picks up the story in 1625, with the accession of Charles I, and it goes on to follow and recount developments down to the return of Charles II in spring 1660, and – in the ‘Epilogue’ – a little beyond. In over 800 pages and well over a third of a million words, this impressive volume ranges across three and a half decades of English and British history, telling afresh (in the words of the dust jacket) ‘the story of the cataclysmic events in England, Scotland, and Ireland that broke the course of royal government’.
Britain in Revolution is a huge book in every sense, the distillation of a lifetime’s-worth of teaching, researching and writing, resulting in a large, sweeping narrative account of a very high standard.
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