This is a really scummy and degraded/degrading suggestion, but on occasion
I have whispered to students that in a real emergency--that is, they need
to write a paper or take an exam and they have almost no time--the
articles in the recent Encyclopedia Britanica are better than zip. Zip is
filled with errors and stereotypes (would you believe a student--at at my
excellent college--who said on an exam that you could tell Marlowe was an
atheist because he laughs at the Pope, the very symbol of religion; she
must have slept through my lecture on the Reformation, but she could have
cast a quick eye over the "Reformation" essay in the EB). Yes, I do know
this is shameful and I do recommend John Guy (although Bindoff's *Tudor
England* is written with wonderful flair, whatever its antiquity now). I
also warn them against the EB on the web, which is often the 1911 edition,
great on dragons, say, but not on history and simply horrifying on "hair."
In sum: I agree with Peter, but for the E.R. (that's emergency room, not
Elizabeth Regina) there are shortcuts. Anne (Prescott)
>
>
> I'd recommend John Guy, Tudor England and Mark Kishlansky, A
> Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714. But if these books are too
> unwieldy, I'd also try the general introductions in the Norton and the
> Longman anthologies of English literature.
> Peter C. Herman
> At 12:56 PM 11/7/2004, you wrote:
> Here's an interesting question
> for the group. I will be teaching a
> seminar course on Early Modern women writers. What I have found in
> the
> past is that many of the students have no background at all in the
> history
> of the time period. For that reason, I supplement with my own
> lectures,
> but would like to put on the course one text that would give them
> easy
> access to 16th and 17th century history in England. It would be
> helpful,
> too, to have some info. on interpreting writings by women, but, of
> course,
> we do that in the class. Any advice? Marianne
> Micros
>
>
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