The Defeat Of The Spanish Armada

Oct 21, 2024 4:22 AM

Author:Garrett Mattingly

Garrett Mattingly's thrilling narrative sets out the background of the sixteenth-century European intrigue and religious unrest that gave rise to one of the world's most famous maritime crusades and the naval battles that decided its fate. In putting the naval campaign of 1588 back into the context of the first great international crisis of modern history, Mattingly builds up, like the movements of a symphony, a broad picture of how events of the time affected men's actions, plans and hopes. He brilliantly connects a series of scenes or episodes, shifting the point of focus from England to the continent and from courts to ships and cities. The feeling of tension mounts to a crescendo throughout Europe as the great drama of the Armada is approached. The battle itself and the aftermath are so vividly and poignantly described that they might be happening in our world today. 'A rare and wonderful book, as readable and exciting as a novel, amazingly fresh and stimulating in its approach to a great subject, and impressive for the wide range and authority of its scholarship.' J.E. Neale

Reviews

A historical masterpiece.

—— A. L. Rowse

A rare and wonderful book, as readable and exciting as a novel, amazingly fresh and stimulating in its approach to a great subject, and impressive for the wide range and authority of its scholarship.

—— J.E. Neale

A faultless book; and one which most historians would have given half their working lives to have written.

—— J.H. Plumb

His work should take its place among the classics of the subject.

—— Times Literery Supplement

This new history has made those supposedly dull Puritans crackle with narrative energy and fizz with vibrant colour as never before

—— Christopher Silvester , Daily Express

An honest, intensive attempt to reconstruct the nemal world of the first Pilgrims, and the topography of the new lands in which they settled

—— Times Literary Supplement

The mythologised vision of the Pilgrim Fathers we have today - their black hats, their lace collars, the landing on Plymouth Rock - is largely a sentimental Victorian fabrication, says this rewriting of one of America's most sacred fables

—— Financial Times, Christmas round up

Timely... Nick Bunker has re-told an old story with aplomb, using a wealth of sources to capture the febrile mood of the time

—— Sally Cousins , Daily Telegraph

Admirable

—— New York Times

Sweeping, extensively researched

—— Leo McKinstry , Express

Butterworth writes lucidly, in fine detail

—— Peter Preston , Observer

This is an exhilarating gallop through the history of anarchism

—— Financial Times

Historian Butterworth makes a first-rate addition to the growing list of books dealing with terrorism's origins and history... Delivering a virtuoso performance, Butterworth adds the hope that history will not repeat itself and that a successful new bloody ideology will not create the next scourge

—— Publisher's Weekly

This is entertaining stuff

—— Sunday Times, Christmas Round Up

Butterworth's fascination with his subject drips from the page...this is entertaining stuff

—— Dominic Sandbrook , Sunday Times

An astounding story of bitter civil warfare that raged across many countries for decades. Butterworth's passionate account of the anarchist movements born in the late 19th century describes a conflict that spawned its own "war on terror"

—— Steve Burniston , Guardian

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