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    Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter
    Unavailable
    Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter
    Unavailable
    Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter
    Ebook271 pages3 hours

    Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter

    By Dan Jones

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A beautifully produced account of the signing, impact and legacy of Magna Carta, a document that became one of the most influential statements in the history of democracy, as part of the stunning landmark library series.

    On a summer's day in 1215 a beleaguered English monarch met a group of disgruntled barons in a meadow by the river Thames named Runnymede. Beset by foreign crisis and domestic rebellion, King John was fast running out of options. On 15 June he reluctantly agreed to fix his regal seal to a document that would change the world.

    A milestone in the development of constitutional politics and the rule of law, the 'Great Charter' established an Englishman's right to Habeas Corpus and set limits to the exercise of royal power. For the first time a group of subjects had forced an English king to agree to a document that limited his powers by law and protected their rights.

    Dan Jones's elegant and authoritative narrative of the making and legacy of Magna Carta is amplified by profiles of the barons who secured it and a full text of the charter in both Latin and English.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHead of Zeus
    Release dateDec 4, 2014
    ISBN9781781858844
    Unavailable
    Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter
    Author

    Dan Jones

    Dan Jones took a first in History from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 2002. He is an award-winning journalist and a pioneer of the resurgence of interest in medieval history. He lives in London.

    Read more from Dan Jones

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    Reviews for Magna Carta

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    • 4/5
      Great little book and Introduction to the people, places and background of the Magna Carta, helping readers realiize why it was created and why it was important. The last chapter explores its legacy up to the modern age, and how it influenced the reformers of the 17th century England and later America- even when they read ideas into the charter that did not actually exist.

      Its also research tool, with some useful appendices, including the text of the Magna Carta in Latin and English, a timeline of events, and Brief Biographies of the leading figures.
      I for one tend to be a little skeptical of 'popular' history books written by people who are not trained historians, but Dan Jones' research seems to be sound, and this has whet my appetite for his next book, '1215' due for release later this year.
    • 4/5
      This short and well illustrated book covers the background events that led up to the issuing of Magna Carta 800 years ago today (though I understand from a separate article I read online that some historians think the actual issuing took place on the 19th, notwithstanding the date on the face of the four extant copies of the original issue). The author places the Charter firmly in its context of Plantagenet politics, resisting the tendency to over-romanticise it, and shows what it meant to its contemporaries, which is by no means always the same as it what had meant to succeeding generations. Nevertheless, among the many clauses that point to contemporary issues to do with property, inheritance and scutage, are key clauses on freedom of the individual from arbitrary use of state and judicial power, that have informed many subsequent constitutional documents including the US Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights. A great general introduction.