1215: The Year of Magna Carta
1215: The Year of Magna Carta by Danny Danziger & John Gillingham.
I am way behind on my bookblogging, but I'll post a really quick review of something I read a few months back just to try to get back in the game a little.
This is an apparent 'sequel' to something called The Year 1000, which I haven't read. It's your typical pop history - both 'low' social history and 'high' political history - in the years leading up to and including 1215, plus the charter's legacy. All very general stuff and nothing I haven't read before; I just wanted to refresh my rusty memory. (I think I got this volume at some book sale, but don't remember exactly.)
Judging by this book, King John revisionism - the idea that maybe he wasn't as big a stinker as everyone used to say - has had its day and we're back to the conventional depiction of the man as a liar, a coward, and worst of all, a stubborn and politically maladroit fool. Indeed, I almost got the feeling that John was being portrayed here as a thirteenth century Dubya, except this came out in 2003, before Dubya's current reputation had totally gelled in the popular mind. (By contrast, last year's Troublesome Young Men was very clearly comparing Neville Chamberlain with Dubya, to the credit of neither.)
This one is also only slightly modulated Whig history - the usual view of Magna Carta as the foundation of modern Anglophone liberty. (Though I'm not sure Whiggery ever went away in pop history - that's almost by definition some flavor of Whig history.)
I didn't really get much out of this and I'm struggling to remember anything of importance aside from the general impressions above. Not recommended.