Growing up in the former Jacobite heartland of Aberdeen, I've had an interest in the Jacobites for almost as long as I can remember. When I was about six, my father was explaining to me on a bus in King Street in the city that Charles Edward could never have won, when another passenger walked the length of the top deck to contradict him. Lost, excluded, and alternative histories fascinated me and still do. History’s winners still too often present partial and excluding stories. Even in Scotland, Jacobitism is still misunderstood, but understanding is much better than it was thirty years ago, and I'm pleased to have done my bit to change that.
The largest – but also the worst led – Jacobite military challenge to Great Britain happened in 1715, when more than 20 000 men volunteered to fight.
Daniel Szechi tells their story more fully than anyone else, and sees Scottish opposition to the 1707 Union with England as one of the greatest motivators of the Jacobite Rising.
Lacking the romantic imagery of the 1745 uprising of supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 has received far less attention from scholars. Yet the '15, just eight years after the union of England and Scotland, was in fact a more significant threat to the British state. This book is the first thorough account of the Jacobite rebellion that might have killed the Act of Union in its infancy.
Drawing on a substantial range of fresh primary resources in England, Scotland, and France, Daniel Szechi analyzes not only large and dramatic moments of the rebellion but also…
Although the Jacobites enjoyed their strongest support in Scotland and Ireland, they had their English supporters too.
This is simply the best and most comprehensive history of the impact of the Jacobites in politics, poetry, religion, society, public order, and rioting, radicalism and among the gentry in England over a century, with an extraordinary amount of detail.
Although historians have devoted much attention to the influence of Jacobitism on Parliamentary politics, none has hitherto attempted to explore its broader implications in English society. Paul Monod's acclaimed study, newly available in paperback, redresses this, and offers a wide-ranging analysis of every aspect of Jacobite activity.
If Scotland supplied the largest number of Jacobite forces in the Risings at home, Ireland had the largest number of Jacobites in the service of foreign armies, as Catholics had no possibility of an army career in Britain at this time.
Ó Ciardha’s book is the best single-volume study of the trajectory of Irish Jacobitism – its politics, its plots, and its culture, over the many decades when it was a serious political option.
This book offers the first analytic study of Irish Jacobitism in English, spanning the period between the succession of James II (1685) and the death of his son 'James III', 'the Old Pretender', in 1766. Two crucial features are the analysis of Irish Jacobite poetry in its wider 'British' and European contexts and the inclusion of the Irish diaspora as a pivotal part of the Irish political 'nation'. Both Jacobites and anti-Jacobites were obsessed with the vicissitudes of eighteenth-century European politics, and the fluctuating fortunes of the Stuarts in international diplomacy. European high politics and recruitment for the Irish Brigades…
The most detailed and thorough, balanced and thoughtful, biography of the hero of 1745- or its villain, depending on your politics.
The difficult childhood, brilliant youth, entitled and bitter middle age, and drunken and abusive old age of the Prince are all brilliantly covered in a magisterial study that examined 100,000 documents, and is still a good read after all that.
In this highly acclaimed study Frank McLynn brings vividly before us the man Charles Edward Stuart who became known to legend as Bonnie Prince Charlie and whose unsuccessful challenge to the Hanoverian throne was followed by the crushing defeat at Culloden in 1746. He argues powerfully that failure was far from inevitable and history in 1745 came close to taking quite a different turn.
The Jacobites and their cause were a global political phenomenon, celebrated from Madagascar to Latin America.
Rebecca Wills’ study is one of the few that examines the Jacobites in one country – Russia – which was a major destination of Jacobite exiles. Some of their service to the Tsar has a contemporary resonance-General James Francis Edward Keith (1696-1758) was both governor of Ukraine and Viceroy of Finland in the 1740s.
This study explores the role played by the Jacobite diaspora in Russia in the saga of Jacobite intrigue and British foreign policy between 1715 and 1750. Drawing on both Russian and British sources, the narrative follows the changing fortunes of Jacobitism in Russia as a key influence on European diplomacy. Uncovering a tale of adventure, enterprise and espionage, it demonstrates that the threat posed by Jacobite intrigue was not confined to the possibility of military action, but was closely linked to the influence of Jacobite agents on every area of Anglo-Russian political and territorial rivalry. In doing so it relates…
Culloden tells the story of one of the world’s decisive battles: a battle that ended the Jacobite cause and turbocharged the British Empire, beginning the journey from Outlander to Downton Abbey in less than an hour. A History Today, Country Life and House of Commons book choice, this is the story of the last pitched battle on British soil. Without a Jacobite defeat, the conquest of Canada, the American War of Independence, and the French Revolution itself might well not have taken place. The Jacobite struggle was a war between a European and an imperial Britain. The Jacobites were the victims of cancel culture long before the term was even thought of. This is the story of what really happened in their last struggle.
I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward.
We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike.
My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…
