John E. Wills (1936–2017)
Autore di 1688: biografia di un anno
Sull'Autore
John E. Wills Jr. is professor of history at the University of Southern California and the author of many acclaimed works in cultural history. (Bowker Author Biography)
Opere di John E. Wills
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome legale
- Wills, John Elliot
- Data di nascita
- 1936-08-08
- Data di morte
- 2017-01-13
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di nascita
- Urbana, Illinois, USA
- Luogo di morte
- Pasadena, California, USA
- Attività lavorative
- historian
university professor - Organizzazioni
- University of Southern California
Utenti
Recensioni
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 10
- Utenti
- 583
- Popolarità
- #43,005
- Voto
- 3.4
- Recensioni
- 8
- ISBN
- 36
- Lingue
- 7
This is an interesting concept - looking at a single year and the political events of the entire world that happened in that year, casting the net as widely as possible to capture every continent. Of course in the home archipelago this is the year of the so-called Glorious Revolution, in which the Catholic James II of England and VII of Scotland was overthrown by a suspicious Protestant elite; in the eastern Mediterranean, the Venetians and Austrians were fighting the Ottomans; up north near St Petersburg, 1500 Old Believers burned to death rather than submit to Russian rule.
However, I confess I'm writing this up some months after I read it, and I remember very little about it. The best bit is an exploration of Japanese poetry and sexual customs of the period. There are also good bits about Australia, science and the Dutch East India Company. But it doesn't hang together as one might have wished.
The problem with taking a snapshot like this is that you necessarily get a static rather than dynamic picture. Stories in history depend on capturing long-term trends to illustrate why particular moments are so important. If you have picked your moments for chronology rather than story, you throw away your advantage.… (altro)