Devil-Land

The book is a big historical advance. Epic in scale, briskly paced and elegantly written … Ours, it turns out, is a very un-insular “Island Story”. And its 17th-century chapter will never look quite the same again. – John Adamson * Sunday Times *

The story of the rise and fall of the Stuart dynasty in England, as seen through the eyes of our often confused European neighbours … Wonderfully clear and original.

– Leanda de Lisle * The Times *
A bracingly revisionist view of our history in the century after the Armada … after reading Devil-Land ‘this sceptered isle’ and ‘demi-paradise’ is unlikely to look quite the same ever again. – David Reynolds * New Statesman *
Jackson reappraises Stuart England in two distinctive ways … The result is a richer picture not only of England under the Stuarts and as a republic, but also of its neighbours … The research is impressive, the writing lucid and every page thought-provoking. It is also tremendously entertaining. – Jessie Childs * London Review of Books *
Wonderful … So vivid, plunges you into the chaos and the uncertainty, and inevitably has echoes of now. It reminds us that states are not inevitabilities, and that they’re formed out of chaos and may go back to the conditions of their formation. – Fintan O’Toole
Extraordinary … one of those perception-changing books of British history which only come along now and then, every few decades, and this is really one of the big ones. – Andrew Marr
A book to be savoured by students, history aficionados, and anyone who enjoys seeing a scholar at the top of her game diving into stories we think we know well, only to emerge with all manner of surprises. – Steven Veerapen * Aspects of History *
Superb … a reminder that bitter division is not a permanent condition … Jackson chronicles events with verve and erudition. – Brendan Simms * Wall Street Journal *
Devil-Land eloquently retells the story of our island’s most turbulent century … England, Jackson shows, was a pariah state, feared, distrusted and ridiculed on the continent. – Ruth Scurr * Times Literary Supplement *
Clare Jackson offers some acute insights on an era of failure and ferment, weaving together an impressive narrative of a time when the English seemed suddenly to have lost their minds. – Gerard DeGroot * The Times *