Rating: 
Summary: Can't Be Recommended too Highly
Review: Professor Schama is that rarest and most undervalued type of author, the academic historian with genuine writing talent. His narratives are always excellent and often spellbinding, particularly in this reading by Timothy West. I used a cross country vacation drive to listen to both volumes and the miles simply melted away. The closest comparison I can make is to Winston Churchill's multivolume History of the English Speaking Peoples, which Schama recalls as an influence in his youth. In fact, Schama is a much better writer than Churchill and his books outshine those which perhaps were his model.Schama has an almost unique ability to humanize the main players in British history, for instance Charles I, Cromwell, James II, Walpole, and Chatham (Pitt the elder), while at the same time retaining a proper sense of objectivity. Similarly, he addresses the great partisan controversies and social trends of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in a concise, but never oversimplified manner. He also often juxtaposes the traditional popular historical view with current (often politically correct) revisionism and provides his critique and synthesis of each, always very fairly and perceptively. His approach in this is rather similar to the excellent Citizens on the French Revolution, almost 15 years ago. I simply cannot find enough good things to say about this book in particular and the series in general. Schama's work is always informative and entertaining, but it does more than that. It also engenders a positive fascination with the subject matter. As such, it makes the perfect gift for an average collegian or a particularly bright high school student.
Rating: 
Summary: The James Carville of Historians
Review: Schama has never gotten over the fact that England lost America and the British Empire, and that since 1915 Anerica has been financing the British government. Like Carville, Schama makes broad and provocative statements that are not supported by credible evidence. On a recent Bill Moyer's program, he claimed that America had "Declared itself to be an empire". Apparently, Schama is the only person who witnessed this "declaration". Maybe he witnessed some UFOs too. In any event, his historical evidence and method is suspect. If you like Carville, you will like Schama.
Rating:
Summary: British History for the American Anglophile.
Review: Simon Schama has written a fabulous book that takes the reader from the England that was merely an archipelago up to the time it becomes an empire. The time period of 1603-1776 is many times ignored or at best passed over quickly in your typical English history class or text. Here,the decidedly bloody English Civil Wars are given their due; the foundations of individual liberty and representative government were established during this time period and then exported to colonial America. The role of religion in politics (17th century version) is explored by the author as Oliver Cromwell's true influence on the nation. A must read for any anglophile.
Rating:
Summary: Great narrative history
Review: Simon Schama is an excellent narrative writer. This book follows along in the same vein as the first volume in the series. The writing is witty and insightful and even inspirational. As a history book, it glances over events instead of dealing with every detail, but this is done in a manner to let the flow of the book proceed and keep reader's interest - much as the first volume does. Historical events are not treated in a geo-politically dry fashion, but sections are devoted to more mundane, yet connective tales of the common people. Many of his earlier works seem more scholarly-oriented, which makes them different reading, as this is more for the common reader. As a text for history 101 this is probably not it; as an individual who enjoys a narrative history, the telling of a good story, and a readable text which holds the reader captive, then you should give this one a try.
Rating:
Summary: A Splendid Introduction To The First British Empire
Review: Simon Schama's second volume in his ongoing project with BBC-TV on the history of Great Britain is another splendid introduction to British history. Here he chronicles the rapid rise of Great Britain's first empire, primarily in North America, and the bloody wars fought over its creation and subsequent demise. Although this is an introduction to 17th and 18th Century British history on a grand scale, it does manage to clear a few cobwebs and misconceptions, most notably, noting whom the intended victims were during Oliver Cromwell's savage campaign against Stuart loyalist forces in Ireland. Much to my amazement, the native Catholic Irish suffered lightly from Cromwell's butchery; only later, during James II's unsuccesful attempt to hold onto his crown, would Irish Catholics become victims of brutal warfare waged by Protestant forces. Most of the book is devoted to the English Civil War and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688/1689, yet Schama devotes considerable time to the two major 18th Century conflicts whose origins were in North America; the Seven Years War (In North America known as the "French and Indian War") and, of course, the American Revolution. The final chapter anticipates the rise of the second British Empire with an overview of British efforts in regulating, eventually dominating, trade in India.
Rating: 
Summary: A splendid introduction to grand history
Review: The second volume of Schama's book tie-in to the BBC and History Channel TV series takes Britain from the death of Elizabeth I (and the ascendancy of James I) to the end of the American Revolution and the settling of a British regime in the Indian subcontinent. It gives more space to the tumultuous middle of the 17th century (350 of the 524 pages) -- with its see-sawing Catholic and Protestant regimes, the civil wars, and Restoration -- than the 18th century. Perhaps what strikes one most about the entire period is how bloody gruesome the English ruling classes and armies once treated their own people as well as the Scots and Irish -- as badly as any 21st century religious dictatorship in Africa or Asia. Thousands were massacred after battles as well as during them; several of the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plotters had their hearts cut out while still alive. Two years after his death and embalming, Cromwell's body was exhumed and publicly hanged. And not just humans suffered: When yet another wave of the plague struck London in 1665, and dog and cats were believed to be the cause, 40,000 dogs and perhaps 200,000 cats were slaughtered. The slave trade and the brutal labor conditions on a West Indian sugar plantation are vividly depicted. (Bracing though all of this may be, it's encouraging to realize that such atrocities have ceased to occur within the UK in the past century and a half, just as it seems unlikely the Germans and French will ever again be at each other's throats, so maybe the species is making slow but inexorable progress toward the light. And what great movies all this history would make, and in some cases HAS made!) Though the life of common folk gets somewhat short shrift, Schama does note significant developments along the way: the arrival of condoms, the growth of print news media, English society as seen through the eyes of a slave named Olaudah Equiano. It is helpful to be reminded that while we Yanks tend to think of the "French and Indian War" as a quaint prelude to our Revolution (whose launching is stirringly related by Schama, who though a born Brit, spent a few years in Boston and now teaches at Columbia), the Seven Years War was actually a sort of "world war" between England and France for future dominance of the globe: battles took place in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, even West Africa and India, while Major George Washington was dashing about New England under Braddock's command. Volume 2 regrettably has fewer maps than Volume 1 -- I would have appreciated a little more topographical help with the mid 17th century civil wars and Scottish campaigns -- and it also shows a few signs of having been rushed to print (e.g., "perpeptuated" on p. 99). But Schama's smooth and engaging narrative style makes a fine introduction to English history for the less knowledgeable general reader. (For example, he wishes Jane Austen had been around to chronicle the vicious personal politics of India's administrators, and drily notes the repeated automatic lies that filled British propaganda about its enemies, decade after decade: "impaled babies, eviscerated pregnant mothers, roughed-up grandpas -- the usual thing....") I look forward with eagerness to the next volume in the series.
Rating:
Summary: Popular History Based on the TV Series
Review: This is popular history for those who know little but those who know a great deal will also find it enjoyable. Sure, it is a coffee table book, but so what? I loved it as I loved the two other volumes. It would also make a nice gift for anyone interested in British history. So what if they know everything? They can look at the pictures.
Rating:
Summary: Popular History Based on the TV Series
Review: This is popular history for those who know little but those who know a great deal will also find it enjoyable. Sure, it is a coffee table book, but so what? I loved it as I loved the two other volumes. It would also make a nice gift for anyone interested in British history. So what if they know everything? They can look at the pictures.
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