NEWMAN, P R - ATLAS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR 1985 Routledge This is a terrific easy to follow step by step, battle by battle
town by town chronological map study of the Civil war years with detailed text accounts of changing fortunes of war from the Scottish Covenant protest Bishops War of 1639-4, through to the capture and execution of Charles The First, and the Republic Protectorate’s division of the country for the reign of the Puritan Generals, to the Restoration of the Stuart Monarchy in 1660. The fifty-six maps are outstanding and very straightforward. They blend with the text on the page to their right perfectly enabling the reader to follow the course of the war and troop movements around the country. Invaluable to read and to look up events in any area you are heading for general visit or to do a battle re-enactment. It is astonishing to see how many towns fell from one side to another and back again at various intervals in the conflict, while other areas were relatively unharmed. The Scottish campaigns by The Marquis of Montrose and Alastair Macdonald against the Campbell’s in Scotland are covered in depth, as are the Rebellion and Cromwellian purges in Ireland. The war was never civil or an exclusively English event. Campaigns in particular regions are covered, and overall assessments of each key year are given. Major battles like Edgehill (1642), Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645) get special close attention. The overall effect is to give a sense of scale and motion to a short history of a colossal period of social upheaval. The book is a useful at a glance guide to what happened where and when, enabling people to see how the war affected their own part of the country and places they may wish to visit too.