William B. Willcoxs The Age of Aristocracy Essay -- European History

William B. Willcoxs The Age of AristocracyThis compact little book is al-Quran III of a series entitled A History of England, alter by Lacey Baldwin Smith, and its inclusion in this series reveals much about its orbital cavity and intent. Smith writes in the Preface to the series that their authors have tried by artistry to step beyond the usual confines of a schoolbook and conjure up something of the drama of politics, of the wealth of personalities, and pull down of the pettiness, as closely as the greatness, of human motivation. Some of this can be found in The Age of Aristocracy some of it cannot. William B. Willcoxs device for covering the significant mass and events of one hundred forty- ii years in only two hundred thirty-seven pages is to view them through the lens of the changing government agency of the oligarchy, and the evolving relationship between Monarch and Parliament. Important military and social events therefore become the results of political maneuvering b etween these governing forces the books focus is upon the interdependency of rules of order and event to recreate a sense of what Smith calls the majestic sail of history from 1688 to 1830. Willcox begins and ends his history with the spoils and applications of revolution. Between the Glorious Revolution and the introduction of the amend Bill in 1831, Willcox sees the rise and gradual fall of a British aristocracy that ruled. . . as never before or since (236), and provided the transition from the cosmos of post-medieval feudalism to the beginnings of the imperialistic British Empire. This is a lot to cover, and Willcox attacks the process by focusing his attention primarily upon the individuals who served as high-ranking ministers in the evolving Cabinet. By explaining the polit... ...s and patterns many years in the making. The books 237-page length is appropriate for much(prenominal) a goal, in order that we might not forget how those patterns began and from what forces they were born. For Willcox, these patterns extend even into our own century, and he is careful to remind us of the similarities between figures such as William Pitt and Winston Churchill while raising the spectre of modern Fascism in the extremist idea of nationalism that the French had sown, particularly in Germany and Italy (211). Willcoxs book hobbles a bit on a few too many legs without sufficiency muscle, but it is unassuming and involving. The British aristocracy, writes Willcox, did not battle to the death (237), and uncomplete does his brief study of its twilight. Work CitedWilliam B. Willcox. The Age of Aristocracy 1688-1830. Boston D.C.Heath and Company, 1966. 237 pp.