J. R. Jones – författare

The Exclusion Crisis was an attempt to bar the King from ascending the throne. The author sets the crisis in its historical perspective as part of a continuing struggle between representative government and monarchial absolutism. The Whigs emerge as a highly disciplined political group who, after winning only a partial victory, were betrayed by a corrupt leader, and fell into disunity.

John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough, was one of the two greatest military commanders in British history and the first subject to achieve and exercise a dominating influence in European affairs. With Wellington and Nelson he is the nearest that Britain has had to a national hero, yet today his reputation has faded. Few, apart from specialists in military history, have any appreciation of the extent of his achievements. This new study sets Marlborough's career in its contexts: the royal Court of the last Stuart monarchs, the desperate struggle against French attempts to establish hegemony in western Europe and the bitter political strife in Britain between the Whig and the Tory parties. It examines the opportunistic ways in which John Churchill rose from obscurity and poverty to wealth and greatness, his decisive role in the Revolution of 1688 and the circumstances and reasons for his dramatic fall.

A Stanford University Press classic.

The Lives of Robert Ryan provides an inside look at the gifted, complex, intensely private man whom Martin Scorsese called "one of the greatest actors in the history of American film." The son of a Chicago construction executive with strong ties to the Democratic machine, Ryan became a star after World War II on the strength of his menacing performance as an anti-Semitic murderer in the film noir Crossfire. Over the next quarter century he created a gallery of brooding, neurotic, and violent characters in such movies as Bad Day at Black Rock, Billy Budd, The Dirty Dozen, and The Wild Bunch. His riveting performances expose the darkest impulses of the American psyche during the Cold War.At the same time, Ryan's marriage to a liberal Quaker and his own sense of conscience launched him into a tireless career of peace and civil rights activism that stood in direct contrast to his screen persona. Drawing on unpublished writings and revealing interviews, film critic J.R. Jones deftly explores the many contradictory facets of Robert Ryan's public and private lives, and how these lives intertwined in one of the most compelling actors of a generation.

First published in 1987, Charles II argues that the conditions affecting government and political activity changed constantly through the reign creating new situations and new sets of problems for the restored monarch and his servants. Charles and his ministers found themselves under almost constant pressures from the parliament, the Church, foreign states and organized public opinion that differed essentially from those encountered by previous rulers. These pressures proved to be the most important influence on Charles, making him concentrate almost entire on short-term tactics and eventually engage in complex manoeuvring to outwit the leaders of the first two political parties, the Whigs and his own Tory auxiliaries. The conditions affecting government differed sharply from one phase of Charles’ reign to another. Professor Jones charts the attitudes and the extent of Charles’ involvement in administration and politics from his exile through the Restoration, his relationships with Clarendon, Buckingham and Danby, the ‘Cabal’ of 1668-73, the mixed administration from 1679 and the contest with the Whigs to his personal rule during the last four years of his reign. This book will be of interest to students of history and literature.

First published in 1987, Charles II argues that the conditions affecting government and political activity changed constantly through the reign creating new situations and new sets of problems for the restored monarch and his servants. Charles and his ministers found themselves under almost constant pressures from the parliament, the Church, foreign states and organized public opinion that differed essentially from those encountered by previous rulers. These pressures proved to be the most important influence on Charles, making him concentrate almost entire on short-term tactics and eventually engage in complex manoeuvring to outwit the leaders of the first two political parties, the Whigs and his own Tory auxiliaries. The conditions affecting government differed sharply from one phase of Charles’ reign to another. Professor Jones charts the attitudes and the extent of Charles’ involvement in administration and politics from his exile through the Restoration, his relationships with Clarendon, Buckingham and Danby, the ‘Cabal’ of 1668-73, the mixed administration from 1679 and the contest with the Whigs to his personal rule during the last four years of his reign. This book will be of interest to students of history and literature.