Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
The Forty Five, 11 Sep 2003
This is the best single volume of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. This is no small claim to make because accounts of this rebellion have been in print since its end, in 1746. Although this takes the usual format, ie, basically chronological, it has a great many virtues.Firstly, although the author (one of the leading living authorities on eighteenth century warfare)claims that all those writing about the '45 end up taking one side or the other, it seems very difficult to detect any bias - most writers on the '45 sympathise heavily with the rebels. This work is as impartial as can be. Bias may be natural, but it injects a dose of propaganda into history.
Duffy uses the well known sources, the Cumberland Papers, memoirs of the rebels and so forth, as all historinas must, but he also explores other source material hitherto unused. These include accounts in European archives by ambassadors in England at the time of the rebellion.He also uses the weather diaries of an English squire, and of these, more anon. The background to the rebellion, both political and military, are explored in early chapters, which help the reader appreciate the difficulties facing bothe the government and the rebels. Duffy's analysis of the controversies surroundingt he rebellion is both fresh and sound. He discusses the forces available to the government in December 1745 when the rebels were about to march to London, in a way that has not been done hitheto. His explanation as to why the rebels had to fighta t Culloden and the decisions of their leaders, are also laid bare. As with Stuart Reid in '1745', Lord George Murray's military faults are exposed. Duffy also explores the vital importance of the weather. The campaign was fought from September 1745 to April 1746, much of it in the north of England and Scotland. Bad weather prevented Wade's army from coming to grips with the rebels, played havoc with ships either trying to aid or hinder each side, and played a part at Culloden. Campaigns at this time were rarely fought outside summer/Spring. There are a few points one could quibble with, but they are essentially minor. Overall, an excellent book for both scholar and general reader (it is footnoted and there is a good bibliography)
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent, 11 Sep 2007
Another review is superfluous given the excellent job already done, as always, by Dr.O. However, an extra thought - self-serving is surely expected of key participants, even desirable. Whether deliberate, for political ends or justification, or simply the result of being too close, seeing the event from their own role in it, and responding emotionally rather than disinterestedly, these are invaluable. Witnesses make untrustworthy narrators but they do also reveal motives and personality. For social historians, these accounts shed light on personal thinking and beliefs about what occurred. They allow events to be viewed from both sides, sometimes filtered through several minds. Not to be sneezed at.
Facts are what we make of them. At this distance from the event, we can afford to be detached. Duffy's stance is refreshing, cool-headed and remarkably clear. His pacey narrative style is a treat which casual readers will enjoy while historians relish the additional, original archive research which effectively fleshes out old bones with new meat. Tourists will appreciate the various maps and guide to key sites. What else, indeed, has been left to do? Unless new papers turn up, of course.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Top Class, 17 Oct 2007
I think the previous reviewers have just about said it all.This is the most informative and well researched book I have read about this period.I would advise anyone who is interested in the 1745 uprising to buy this book as it clears up a lot of miconceptions which have built up over 250 years of propaganda from the opposing camps.Suffice to say it has changed my views of the uprising and the author should be commended for this as a great slice of military and social history.
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