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Preston’s book on the last Jacobite Rebellion is an interesting volume. It looks for balance not by stripping away all romanticism or propaganda, but by embracing them. What papers and people were saying on both sides is looked at, not necessarily to arrive at a middle ground, but to show what they were concerned about.

The 1745 rebellion was the passing of an era, and like any such, a large number of stories and legends sprung up around it. And while The Road to Culloden Moor spends a good amount of time talking about them, and how they compare to the events they’re based on, this ignorant American could have used a better grounding in just what these myths are.

As a popular history, the descriptions of the battles are somewhat cursory, but then most of them were extremely brief affairs, on the other hand, it is hard to keep a great sense of the maneuvering going on (maps, as always, would help). But beyond that, the narrative of the entire rebellion, from Charles’… ‘escape’ from Rome to France, to the aftermath, is well done, and overall the book is very informative.