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Title: Cromwell by Antonia Fraser ISBN: 0-8021-3766-0 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 30 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A competent but lifeless biography
Comment: This is a diligent & conscientious look at the life of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658 AD) from his modest beginnings as a small landowner , his spiritual evolution into a devout (but self-rightous) Puritan to his election to the English parliament, followed by his role as the the chief protagonist in the English civil war in the 1640's which culminated in the beheading of Charles I (1649) . The events leading up to the dismissal of the "Rump" parliament in 1652 and the establishment of the protectorate (essentially Cromwell's dictatorship) are also narrated ably.All the important battles(Edgehill,Naseby etc) are sketched in detail .Antonia Fraser does a pretty good job collating and narrating all the major events in Cromwell's life but what's missing from this book is LIFE (incidentally the "bio" in biography stands for "life"!) .It is an OK history but a fairly mediocre biography .For instance Cromwell is widely regarded as the man who galvanised the energies of 17th century England (by getting rid of an effete monarch and massively building up the navy) effectively laying down the foundations of the subsequent British empire but this book gives the reader very little sense of that .Considering that Cromwell's contemporaries included figures like Cardinal Mazarin,Milton,William Harvey,Francis Bacon and the birth of Newton(1642 AD) this book does a fairly poor job of giving us a "feel" for the post Elizabethan England and the dynamic energy that must have characterised it ____a good biography being more than just a day to day narrative of the subject's life.This is quite a leaden and turgid book .I finished it more out of a sense of obligation than pure reading pleasure( it is more than 700 pages long!) . It is most definitely NOT a page turner!
Rating: 5
Summary: A little too pro-Cromwell, but OK
Comment: Having read Antonia Fraser's Mary Queen of Scots which I liked for one reason because she was favorable to Mary, I was a little surprised to see how defensive Antonia Fraser was of Cromwell in this carefully written and very adequate biography. But except for that defensiveness, this is a good book, capped by the astounding information which she gives of what happened to Cromwell's body after Charles II came back to England. That account alone makes the book worth reading. I suspect I will never again note September 3 as memorable only because Engkand abnd France declared war on Hitler on that date. Cromwell won two of his greatest victories and died on that date as well. (Though that was, I presume, old calendar). I have been meaning to read this book for over 20 years and I am glad I finally did.
Rating: 3
Summary: Detailed, pro-Cromwell, and a bit too long
Comment: Cromwell is perhaps the single most controversial figure in English history. Only John and Richard III have attracted as much venom as he has, and there are still people alive today who hate him -- see some of the other reviews here for at least one example. Naturally the truth is complicated, and Fraser lays out a good deal of detail in support of her case, which is that Cromwell was much maligned, and was on the whole a good and religious man trying hard to do what he thought was right.
I had no prior belief about Cromwell, but I have to say Fraser convinced me rather of the opposite -- that he was a religious fanatic, brilliant but limited, who was neither a great ruler nor personally very admirable. Her apologies for some of his worst sins, such as the terrible events in Ireland, are outlandish.
On the plus side, this is a thorough and detailed book, with enough information to allow a reader to make up their own mind. Fraser does at least keep the facts separate from her opinions. The book is excellent on Cromwell himself; it's pretty good on details of the Civil Wars, though it doesn't go to the level that an exclusively military history might. However, it's surprisingly weak on the overall political background. To truly understand Cromwell you need to know what came before and after. I would have liked to see more about the religious state of the country, and why it got that way, and also about the Revolution of only thirty years after his death. But in concentrating on Cromwell the man (at perhaps too great a length), Fraser has skimped on the surrounding politics.
Overall, I'd recommend this only if you're deeply interested in knowing a lot about Cromwell's life, or if you already know the political and religious framework of the years 1640-1660. If you know both, this is a fine book (allowing for Fraser's open bias) but it's no place to start.
One other note: the paperback edition (which is what I have) does not have any of the photographs or other plates that are apparently in the hardback -- Fraser makes occasional reference to "the plate opposite page 709" and so on, so I would bear that in mind in choosing between the two editions.
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Title: Faith and Treason : The Story of the Gunpowder Plot by ANTONIA FRASER ISBN: 0385471904 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 13 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser ISBN: 038531129X Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Oliver Cromwell (Reputations Series) by J. C. Davis ISBN: 0340731184 Publisher: Edward Arnold Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Talleyrand by Duff Cooper ISBN: 0802137679 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 30 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: To Honour God: the spirituality of Oliver Cromwell by Michael A. G. Haykin ISBN: 1894400038 Publisher: Joshua Press Inc. Pub. Date: 15 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.49 |
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