God's Fury, England's Fire

This was a book on the Civil War, and it was fascinating. I read most of it on the way down to Oxford and back for a history trip to look round the university. It was brilliantly engaging, and instead of just focussing on the major events, it looked at the smaller ones that surrounded them, at the individuals who took part. It also looked a lot at the social impacts, rather than just the campaigns. I think perhaps the most interesting thing about it for me was the description of the explosion of printed material that took place with the effective end of censorship. All the pamphlets and petitions! It makes our society look rather pathetic with regard to letting people know about what's going on. It was also the birth of the newspaper, as people were desparate to find out what was happening (understandable in the midst of a Civil War...), but not all of the stuff out there was reliable. So these newsbooks started up that claimed to tell the truth. A very interesting book, if rather long and with quite small print. If you don't mind the small print though, it's a good book.