In this book, Peter Ackroyd has captured the period as only he can. From the accession of the thrillingly unappealing James VI and u0026 I, who though rather ghastly, was also extraordinarily eloquent, to his hapless heir, Charles I, whose taste in art was peerless, but whose political judgment was so fatally poor, to Oliver Cromwell, far from pretty, ruthless and, ultimately, as much of a despot as and "that man of blood, and " the king he executed, Ackroyd tells the story of the turbulent seventeenth century, in which England suffered through three civil wars - two fought between Parliament and both Charles I and Charles II, and, finally, the and "Glorious Rebellion of 1688, and " which saw Charles II's brother James deposed and sent into exile.Civil War doesn't just give us the brutality of politics and war. It also gives us glimpses of the extraordinarily rich literature of the time - Jacobean tragedy, Shakespeare's late masterpieces, the sermons of Dr. Donne and Lancelot Andrewes, Milton, Hobbes - and of ordinary life, lived against a backdrop of constant disruption and uncertainty.