This month's reviews in the Literary Review (Pages 9-11)

The Literary Review is, I must admit, one of my favourite publications, partly because of the range of books it covers. April, 2025's edition is no exception. I have been particularly intrigued to read Peter Moore's assessment of Simon Park's book, Wreckers:Disaster in the Age of Discovery, which covers the trials and tribulations of European explorers in the period after 1492. This was less glorious, according to Simon Park, than it has traditionally been viewed. There were deaths, disasters and all sorts of humiliations experienced by seafarers like Vasco da Gama, Magellan and others. This shift in perspective helps to adjust one's appreciation of the period even though the inhabitants of Central and South America or India did not apparently draw serious conclusions from the appearance of travellers from so far away.

There is also a review by the distinguished historian, John Guy, of Anna Whitelock's new book, The Sun Rising: James I and the Dawn of a Global Britain. Old stereotypes of his rule scarcely feature with her focus firmly on the King's failure to achieve a perfect union between his native land, Scotland, and England (and Wales). He was also unsuccessful in promoting European peace, especially after the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War. Whitelock reached the conclusion that commercial developments and the spread of new means of communication via print did more to create a sense of British identity than James's efforts to achieve legal and institutional forms of union. This is a case that one needs to study by reading her arguments.