Foto de l'autor

Geoffrey Treasure (1929–2021)

Autor/a de The Huguenots

13 obres 358 Membres 5 Ressenyes 1 preferits

Sobre l'autor

Obres de Geoffrey Treasure

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Membres

Ressenyes

Historiography progressed and diversified by leaps and bounds in the 20th century, but a stubborn and influential core of UK and US university historians seem to devote their careers to indoctrinate a fundamental conviction in the next generation: rulers make history, so the history of rulers is much more important than anything else. Many chapters in this book provide good examples of this ossified historical analysis.

To his credit the author does actually recognize in the first six chapters (230 pages) that Europe between 1648 and 1780 can be studied from many perspectives. These chapters contain a reasonably informative general discussion of how society functioned in these centuries. It touches on the interaction between nobility and peasants, war, famine, poverty, economic production, religion and political organization. I can't say it belongs among the best analyses that I've read, but it was good enough to capture my attention and I generally enjoyed reading it.

But then the author turns to his main theme in this story about "The Making of Europe", which is a recapitulation of the deeds of various kings and queens who ruled the European lands in these centuries. He devotes about 400 pages to discuss what they (and sometimes their advisers and courtiers) did, and quite often also what they were like. The narrative is hopelessly boring and uninformative. The author assumes that the reader is already more or less familiar with all these persons and the various battles, religious disputes, rebellions and whatnot that occupied them in these centuries. He explains how these mighty men (and some women) reacted to the problems they faced.

Just to illustrate how confusing this is for the layman, the index of the book lists twelve different rulers named "Charles". I dare say it's pretty difficult to remember and understand who they all were as they pop up in the narrative here and there (unless you have devoted a few years of university studies to memorizing them). Each chapter deals with a specific country, but the author often adopts a confusing style of presentation where he jumps back and forth between different decades in the space of just a few paragraphs. I couldn't bear this for very long so I just browsed through the second half of the book quite quickly.

A big problem for an amateur history reader is that it's difficult to know which historians write wooden chronicles like this, and which ones actually help you understand something about the age in question. This particular author falls about 80% in the former camp and 20% in the latter.
… (més)
 
Marcat
thcson | Mar 28, 2020 |
In the mid-17th century, France emerged as the dominant power in continental Europe. While this development was the result of a range of historical factors and personages, one of the people who played a decisive role in bringing it about was the Italian-born Jules Mazarin. As chief minister of France for nearly two decades, he served as the main architect of French policy during this period, establishing the kingdom's preeminence through war and diplomacy. By the time he died in 1661 France had eclipsed Spain militarily, while the marriage Mazarin arranged between the Spanish princess Maria Theresa and the young Louis XIV helped to end France's ongoing wars with the Habsburgs and cemented its status for decades to come.

Given his achievements, Mazarin deserves a thorough biography that details his life within the context of his times. One of the things that makes Geoffrey Treasure's account of his life so impressive is that he manages simultaneously to both succeed and fall short in providing one for his readers. In it he charts Mazarin's life from his early years as a precocious young Italian nobleman through his years as a papal envoy (during which time he became a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church) to his emergence as Richelieu's deputy and successor as chief minister. Throughout it he describes the development of Mazarin's considerable diplomatic skills, his application of them in the service of both the papacy and the French monarchy, and his broader influence on policy. While an admirer of Mazarin's, Treasure does not hesitate to identify his flaws and the errors he made in both politics and policy, which he weighs against his many accomplishments to provide a nuanced examination of his subject.

It is for these reasons that Treasure's biography is an valuable resource about Mazarin and his role in events. Yet the author's style often inhibits his efforts. His book is a dense text that assumes the reader is already well-versed in the context of 17th century French and European history, which can be problematic given the range of complex subjects he addresses, from state finances to international diplomacy. Treasure's excessively florid prose only exacerbates this problem, with some sentences so convoluted as to be indecipherable. As a result, while his book is a necessary read for anyone seeking to understand Mazarin, to fully benefit from its value it should by no means be the first one they tackle.
… (més)
 
Marcat
MacDad | Mar 27, 2020 |
Oddly, although this is a reference book and not intended to be read for pleasure, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to getting the others in the series. It’s a series of one-or-two page biographies of the familiar – William Pitt, Jane Austen, Wellington, Byron – and many less familiar.


Some things struck me:


*Napoleon and the French Revolution had the same fascination for the “best and brightest” of the time that Communism had in ours. However, they got over it, while we’re still saddled with cryptoMarxists.


*A surprising number of people committed suicide. I wonder if drug overdose has replaced the straight razor as the final solution to despair among the famous?


*There are no entrepreneurs; a few of the people mentioned had made some money “in trade”, but they’re here because of subsequent philanthropic, political or artistic activity. On the other hand, there are a number of people who started out in the lower classes – Wolfe Tone, William Cobbett, Robert Burns, John Clare, Thomas Telford, John Dalton, Sir Humphrey Davy – and achieved fame (or, in Tone’s case, infamy) through their talent.


*A number of engineers and inventors are included: Stephenson, Trevithick, McAdam, Rennie, Maudslay. It’s gratifying to see them recognized by historians, who sometimes seem to concentrate on politicians (there’s a famous American history text that does not mention Thomas Edison or the Wright Brothers but has several paragraphs on Joseph McCarthy).


The book does have some drawbacks. The entries are chronological by career: early politicians, later politicians, early poets, later poets, etc. This makes it difficult to look someone up - you can go to the index, of course, but since the book was not intended to be read as a history I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t have been alphabetical. I suppose the author was thinking of “parallel lives”; it might make sense to juxtapose the careers of William Pitt and Charles Fox this way, but it doesn’t work very well elsewhere. You are also expected to be familiar with British history; it’s assumed that you know what the Reform Bill was about and what the Corn Laws were. Nevertheless there’s plenty of interesting people in here and the format makes it easy to pick up and read a biography or two. I’m anxious to get the others in the series.
… (més)
 
Marcat
setnahkt | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Dec 14, 2017 |
1627 Seventeenth Century France, by G. R. R. Treasure, M.A. (read 18 Apr 1981) The author of this book is identified as "Assistant Master at Harrow School." I found the book a very worthwhile one, and rather unifying. I was struck by some things I learned in the book. The treatment of the Huguenots after the Revolution of the Edict of Nantes I believe has not been treated so starkly and hostilely to Louis XIV in anything I've read before. The War of the Spanish Succession is treated by a chapter called "The Great War" and that seems to be worthy of more detailed study by me. This book is probably used as a high school text at Harrow, but I did not find it too elementary.… (més)
 
Marcat
Schmerguls | Nov 26, 2008 |

Potser també t'agrada

Estadístiques

Obres
13
Membres
358
Popularitat
#66,978
Valoració
½ 3.5
Ressenyes
5
ISBN
38
Llengües
1
Preferit
1

Gràfics i taules