A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts

by Robert Bucholz

Streaming video, 2003

Status

Available

Call number

942

Publication

Great Courses (2003), 24 hours, 48 lectures, 287 pages

Description

History. Nonfiction. HTML: During the 229-year period from 1485 to 1714, England transformed itself from a minor feudal state into what has been called "the first modern society" and emerged as the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. Those years hold a huge and captivating story. The English survived repeated epidemics and famines, one failed invasion and two successful ones, two civil wars, a series of violent religious reformations and counter-reformations, and confrontations with two of the most powerful monarchs on Earth, Louis XIV of France and Philip II of Spain. But they did much more than survive. They produced a great culture, giving the world the ideas of John Locke, the plays of Shakespeare, the wit of Swift, the poetry of Milton, the buildings of Christopher Wren, the science of Isaac Newton, and the King James Bible, to name a very few. And, despite the cruelty, bloodshed, and religious suppression they visited upon so many, they ultimately left behind something else: the political principles and ideals for which we-and so many of them - would work and die, and on which we would build our own nation. Now you can watch this remarkable panorama of society, economics, religion, and politics unfold in a series of 48 transfixing lectures by a justifiably honored teacher who takes you into the lives of not only Britain's ruling royal houses, but the English people themselves, describing how they were born, worked, played, worshiped, fell in love, and died. Cinematic in their presentation and detail - whether describing the likely thoughts of Charles I on the way to his execution or the overheard weeping of Queen Anne after she fired her Lord Treasurer - these lectures are as memorable as the history they describe..… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jpsnow

This course is excellent. I was captivated by all 44 cds, to the point that I didn't mind traffic backups on the freeway. Bucholz is a clear, informative, and expressive. I especially appreciate how he links the history of England to our own modern American outlook.

Language

English

Original language

English

Local notes

[1] England 1485–1714, the First Modern Country [2–4] The Land and Its People in 1485 [5] Medieval Prelude: 1377–1455 [6] Medieval Prelude: 1455–85 [7] Establishing the Tudor Dynasty: 1485–97 [8] Establishing the Tudor Dynasty: 1497–1509 [9] Young King Hal: 1509–27 [10] The King's Great Matter: 1527–30 [11] The Break from Rome: 1529–36 [12] A Tudor Revolution: 1536–47 [13] The Last Years of Henry VIII: 1540–47 [14] Edward VI: 1547–53 [15] Mary I: 1553–58 [16] Young Elizabeth: 1558 [17] The Elizabethan Settlement: 1558–68 [18] Set in a Dangerous World: 1568–88 [19] Heart and Stomach of a Queen: 1588–1603 [20] The Land and its People in 1603 [21] Private Life: The Elite [22] Private Life: The Commoners [23] The Ties that Bound [24] Order and Disorder [25] Towns, trade, and colonization [26] London [27] The Elizabethan and Jacobean Age [28] Establishing the Stuart Dynasty: 1603–25 [29] The Ascendancy of Buckingham: 1614–28 [30] Religion and Local Control: 1628–37 [31] Crisis of Three Kingdoms: 1637–42 [32] The Civil Wars: 1642–49 [33] The Search for a Settlement: 1649–53 [34] Cromwellian England: 1653–60 [35] The Restoration Settlement: 1660–70 [36] The Failure of the Restoration: 1670–78 [37] The Popish Plot and Exclusion: 1678–85 [38] A Catholic Restoration? 1685–88 [39] The Glorious Revolution: 1688–89 [40] King William's War: 1689–92 [41] King William's War: 1692–1702 [42] Queen Anne and the Rage of Party: 1702 [43] Queen Anne's War: 1702–10 [44] Queen Anne's Peace: 1710–14 [45] Hanoverian Epilogue: 1714–30 [46, 47] The Land and Its People in 1714 [48] The Meaning of English History: 1485–1714