The Sun Rising
- Author Anna Whitelock
- Narrator Alix Dunmore
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date 24 April 2025
- Run Time 11 hours and 2 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Biography: royalty, European history: medieval period, middle ages, History of the Americas.
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What to expect
Bloomsbury presents The Sun Rising by Anna Whitelock, read by Alix Dunmore.
A panoramic history of the arrival of the Stuarts, and how the reign of King James I saw England reach new corners of the globe
'A majestic, brilliant account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good' PETER FRANKOPAN
'With its gripping storytelling combined with historical rigour, The Sun Rising is just the right kind of zesty treatment a neglected period needs. Fresh and fabulous' LUCY WORSLEY
In 1603 England was on the edge of crisis. Queen Elizabeth I had died, bringing the Tudor line to an end.
Enter King James, who reached London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. James established a new dynasty on the English throne and the first ‘united’ kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales was born. The Stuarts had arrived.
But first, this new ‘Great Britain’ had to play catch up. England was behind, but James’s global ambitions began to shift the tide. As ships departed London for America, Russia, Persia, India and Japan, as the fledgling East India Company began to intertwine ever closer with the crown and as the English began to travel beyond the bounds of their island in greater numbers than ever before, the seeds of the future British Empire were sown.
Long overshadowed by the glory of Elizabeth I and the fatal nadir of Charles I, the reign of the first King of Great Britain is at last told in a new light. Taking in everything from the historic voyage of the Mayflower to the alliance between James and the Persian shah over a joint love of silk, The Sun Rising revolutionises our understanding of the early seventeenth century and the figures that forged a global Britain.
A panoramic history of the arrival of the Stuarts, and how the reign of King James I saw England reach new corners of the globe
'A majestic, brilliant account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good' PETER FRANKOPAN
'With its gripping storytelling combined with historical rigour, The Sun Rising is just the right kind of zesty treatment a neglected period needs. Fresh and fabulous' LUCY WORSLEY
In 1603 England was on the edge of crisis. Queen Elizabeth I had died, bringing the Tudor line to an end.
Enter King James, who reached London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. James established a new dynasty on the English throne and the first ‘united’ kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales was born. The Stuarts had arrived.
But first, this new ‘Great Britain’ had to play catch up. England was behind, but James’s global ambitions began to shift the tide. As ships departed London for America, Russia, Persia, India and Japan, as the fledgling East India Company began to intertwine ever closer with the crown and as the English began to travel beyond the bounds of their island in greater numbers than ever before, the seeds of the future British Empire were sown.
Long overshadowed by the glory of Elizabeth I and the fatal nadir of Charles I, the reign of the first King of Great Britain is at last told in a new light. Taking in everything from the historic voyage of the Mayflower to the alliance between James and the Persian shah over a joint love of silk, The Sun Rising revolutionises our understanding of the early seventeenth century and the figures that forged a global Britain.
Critics Review
Well-informed, fluid and fascinating
A refreshing break with the Anglo-centricity of so much recent writing on James VI and I
Anna Whitelock proves a sure-footed and eloquent guide to James’s reign . . . What is striking when one reads this primer is that, exactly four centuries after James’s death, Britain finds itself once again playing catch-up, uncertain of its place in the world, and lacking the kind of identity that was forged in the seventeenth century
A majestic, brilliant account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good
Does away with conventional royal biography. This rich and evocative book takes us far from Whitehall in pursuit of James’ ambitious vision for a united, global Britain. Moving from the plantations of Ireland and trading posts in Indonesia to the courts of Japan and Russia, the book shows us the strange birth of an empire and pushes beyond anglocentric history
With its gripping storytelling combined with historical rigour, The Sun Rising is just the right kind of zesty treatment a neglected period needs. Fresh and fabulous
Richly evocative and brilliantly provocative, The Sun Rising transports its readers far from Whitehall in pursuit of James I’s vision for a united, global Britain. From the plantations of Ireland and trading posts in Indonesia to the courts of Russia and Japan, Anna Whitelock’s compelling narrative looks afresh at James I, and at the idea of Britain that emerged during his reign – and which still resonates today
Stereotypes are out; new ways of defining James and his world are in . . . Whitelock’s exploration of how political, cultural and commercial interests interlocked in James’s policymaking, so expanding conceptions of state power, is game-changing
Less a biographical study of the first Stuart king and more an ambitious, evocative “reframing” of James I’s reign, which attempts to show how he laid the foundations for the future empire
Does a terrific job of communicating the ways in which James and his time wereboth incredibly like and unlike our own
Covers what was a “golden age” of exploration, navigation, trade and propaganda, beginning with James’ accession to the English throne in 1603 … What emerges is a much-needed panoramic view of Jacobean Britain as it was projected across the globe . . . Whitelock provides a restorative to tiresome preconceptions about an often-maligned monarch . . . A variety of Stuart personalities appear in Whitelock’s account, including the outward-looking merchant Thomas Smythe, the American princess Matoaka (Pocahontas), the inventor John Harington, and the adventurer John Saris . . . They deserve, as Whitelock makes clear, to be as well-known as the courtiers, artists and adventurers of the Elizabethan and Henrician eras . . . Whitelock’s James is the king as he was in his day: confident, canny and colourful
A picturesque portrait of the nascent Great Britain in an extraordinary age of unification, expansion and commercial experimentation. With sympathy and vigour, Anna Whitelock showcases many facets of this emerging world at home and overseas, ruled over by a fascinating monarch too often neglected and misunderstood by posterity
A very lucid, exciting and well-researched narrative of a part of British history which has been relatively neglected and yet is of vital and enduring importance for the development of Britain
With shrewd reasoning and in lucid prose, Professor Anna Whitelock refuses the vision of James VI and I as an insular caretaker king, uncomfortably sandwiched between the glittering Elizabeth and the ill-fated Charles. Here, instead, is a focal reign in which the British reached tendrils out into the corners of the globe and entwined themselves with the history of the world. A scintillating and vital read
Fascinating, razor-sharp and shot through with uncanny resonances for the interesting times in which we live, The Sun Rising is the brilliantly realised story of James I and the men who, under his rule, sailed the world in search of power and profit. With wit and acute insight, in a page-turning read, Anna Whitelock shows us the seventeenth-century making of ‘Global Britain’
Big, bold, bracing history that expertly captures the energy, ambition and ruthlessness by which a fledgling Britain took wing and then proceeded to feather its nest. Anna Whitelock gives us wide vistas, sharp insights and immersive prose; I can almost taste the salt and smell the sulphur
Intended as a 'provocation' to rethink established narratives, The Sun Rising takes readers from Jamestown to Archangel and from Mughal India to Pulo Run in modern-day Indonesia. Assembling a large cast of explorers, envoys and entrepreneurs, Whitelock's new book vividly underscores the vitality and global ambitions of early seventeenth-century Englishmen and their first Stuart king
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