*WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2022*

A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021, AS CHOSEN BY THE TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, TELEGRAPH AND TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

'A big historical advance. Ours, it turns out, is a very un-insular "Island Story". And its 17th-century chapter will never look quite the same again' John Adamson, Sunday Times

A ground-breaking portrait of the most turbulent century in English history

Among foreign observers, seventeenth-century England was known as 'Devil-Land': a diabolical country of fallen angels, torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. Clare Jackson's dazzling, original account of English history's most turbulent and radical era tells the story of a nation in a state of near continual crisis.

As an unmarried heretic with no heir, Elizabeth I was regarded with horror by Catholic Europe, while her Stuart successors, James I and Charles I, were seen as impecunious and incompetent. The traumatic civil wars, regicide and a republican Commonwealth were followed by the floundering, foreign-leaning rule of Charles II and his brother, James II, before William of Orange invaded England with a Dutch army and a new order was imposed.

Devil-Land reveals England as, in many ways, a 'failed state': endemically unstable and rocked by devastating events from the Gunpowder Plot to the Great Fire of London. Catastrophe nevertheless bred creativity, and Jackson makes brilliant use of eyewitness accounts - many penned by stupefied foreigners - to dramatize her great story. Starting on the eve of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and concluding with a not-so 'Glorious Revolution' a hundred years later, Devil-Land is a spectacular reinterpretation of England's vexed and enthralling past.

• We started tracking this book on May 18, 2022.
• This book was £14.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 20 times in the past 1,254 days.
• The current price of this book is £5.99 last checked 8 hours ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past year.
• The lowest price to date was £1.99 last reached on July 31, 2024.
• This book has been £1.99 3 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was £14.99 last reached on May 18, 2022.
• This book has been £14.99 one time since we started tracking it.

• HistoryWorld
• HistoryUK

• Publication Date: September 30, 2021
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 496 Pages
• File Size: 334 KB