[Artemisia] Stuart England Book - what is this?

[Dr. Helm-Clark]

> Greetings Good Cousins,
> This book would seem to be one I should have in my 
> libary.  But for those of us who are not familiar 
> with this good work, someone kindly give me a brief 
> review of what it covers as to Stuart England (overview, 
> culture, art, etc...). 

As an owner of this book, in terms of historical "heft"
I would place it somewhere between the content value of
the _Plantagenet Chronicles_, _Four Gothic Kings_ et al.
series (coffee table books on steroids) and hard-core
scholarly history books from your standard academic press.
The text is more like the Durant books than not, but the
layout is classic coffee table book - which might give a
person the impression that it is less substancial than
it turns out to be.  The book is a credible historical
review of the Stuarts and their reigns, from James I to
Queen Anne.  Each chapter is a stand-alone essay by a
known historian of the period. While the emphasis is on
traditional "diplomatic" (ie political) history, there is
enough discussion of life and leisure that the book avoids
the trap of "boring dry history" that we all know and hate
from too many dull mandatory history classes. The 
treatment of Charles I as a patron of art is brief but
good. The overview of the 17th C. wars with the Dutch is
both short and adequate.

Since the book covers the entire Stuart period, fans of
the English Civil War may feel a bit disappointed by the
relatively brief coverage of the antecidents and conflict.
The coverage of the Elizabethan to Stuart transition is 
even briefer.

One of the reasons I like this book is the quality of 
the graphics, mostly taken from 17th C. paintings, books
and political pamphlets. The number of period prints,
broadsides, newssheets and pamphlets, plus the discussion
of these is one of the positive aspects of the book.
Figure captions tend to be short stand-alone historical
vignettes. You will not find any of the mismatched 
figures-and-text or OOP figures which mar the
_Plantagenet Chronicles_ series of books.

The downside of the book is that the text feels disjoint 
in places, which is probably an artifact that each 
chapter is written by a different historian. Regardless 
of the reason, the jerkiness of the text makes it a bit
hard to read in places.

If someone were not too familiar with the Stuart century,
this book would be a good introduction. In comparison,
Churchill is a joy to read but too focused on political
and military history; and Durant is more wrapped up in
the intellectual history of the emerging "Age of 
Enlightment."

Does this help?