Rebellion is something of a prequel. Already responsible for two excellent narratives of late Stuart politics (2005's Restoration and 2006's Revolution), Tim Harris returns here to the dynasty's beginning, giving the early Stuarts the same balanced and readable treatment as their successors. Rebellion is clearly the work of a master craftsman. Chapters are structured around clear questions, historiographical issues are explained with admirable clarity, and the pace barely flags over 500 pages of narrative.

What has changed from earlier volumes is chiefly Harris's command of his materials. Whereas earlier efforts rested on Harris's own towering erudition and expertise on later Stuart politics, Rebellion is, as Harris acknowledges, “heavily indebted” (vii) to both the research and the interpretive frameworks constructed by other scholars. Harris's grasp of early Stuart materials is very strong but by no means complete. This shows in minor ways: Tacitus was not a “great classical theorist of republicanism” (123); Raleigh was executed in 1618, not 1617 (as implied 138–39); and so on. Oblique references are sometimes mishandled: in arguing that the English army of 1639 was inadequately trained and equipped, Harris quotes the satirical “Piggs Corantoe”: “insteed of Souldiers there goe babies and Sucklings” (374). As it happens, the estimable Pigg was here commenting not on the adequacy of the conscripts but on the character of their officers, and particularly on the noted poet and fop Sir John Suckling, whose activities as a cavalry commander were widely ridiculed. Harris does not seem to get the joke, which is certainly excusable in itself but does raise questions about how sure a guide Harris can be to the subtleties of early Stuart political culture.

On its own terms, however, the book is splendid, packed with careful primary research and extensive readings in the secondary literature, presented with verve and style; an admirable achievement suited to Harris's particular talents. Rebellion is framed by considerations of political thought: it opens with a meditation on Jacobean theories of kingship, and more or less closes with an extended consideration of Henry Parker. But the bulk of the book is concerned with politics “out of doors,” which is Harris's special way to refer to the nebulous groups others describe with the language of “popular politics” or the “public sphere.” Instead of a straight narrative of government, then, Harris has produced a narrative of dialogue between princes and people. The unpopularity of the Spanish match, criticisms of the Personal Rule, attempts to win the “battle of public opinion” in 1640–41—for Harris, these are not sideshows, but rather the main events. Unlike most other narratives of these decades, Rebellion has little factional maneuver but a great deal of dangerous talk. A further significant virtue is the relatively full treatment of Scottish and Irish narratives, which are unusually careful and thorough.

Who is Rebellion for? Rebellion is neither a monograph nor a new interpretation of the period: it is a synthetic narrative of existing research. Though one can always learn something from such narratives, early Stuart specialists will find little that is new. If his answers are judiciously moderate, the questions that structure Harris's account are very familiar: how important was politics “out of doors”? (Very.) How important was religion as a motivating factor? (Somewhat.) Was the Stuart monarchy “basically sound” and ruined by royal blunder, or “was there something wrong with the system itself” (492)? (Some of both.) Nor is Rebellion ideally suited for undergraduates, since it assumes some serious prior knowledge (why were the councilors in favor of a “militant Protestant foreign policy” also “keen for the king to deal with parliament”? [127]) and a willingness to consult the Dictionary of National Biography when, from time to time, Harris drops a name without explanation. But Rebellion will be very useful to graduate students hoping to get a more secure grasp of the early Stuart political narrative, and it can serve the same purpose for scholars in allied fields, like literature or music.

I recommend the book with two caveats. For my taste, Harris is a little cavalier in his terminology: King James was a “political operator” (188) pursuing a “balancing-act strategy” to give himself “room for manoeuvre” (105, 170); while Charles's regime understood “the politics of spin” (500) and at times can be found launching “a major PR offensive” (253). Turning “out-of-doors,” Harris often sketches the prevailing “mood” (280) or “atmosphere” (280, 282), or the state of “public opinion” (190, 387, 390, 437). Though I understand the need for accessible prose, to me this needlessly abandons the central revisionist insight, that the political life of the past is not straightforwardly identical to the political life of the present. Harris makes early Stuart politics feel strangely indistinct.

Second, while the book does integrate Irish and Scottish developments to build a genuinely archipelagic story, Harris's approach leaves little room for a European context. Harris enjoys counterfactual speculation, but in fact the early Stuarts' contemporaries faced similar structural challenges: administrative backwardness, soaring costs, composite domains, rebellious subjects, and religious pluralism plagued all the governments of Europe. Rethinking the basic questions of early Stuart politics would mean, in part, setting them on a wider stage: not merely as part of British, but as part of European history.