Dan Jones has an enviable gift for telling a dramatic story while at the same time inviting us to consider serious topics like Liberty and the seeds of representative government.
We think of the Declaration of Independence as our founding document but those who drafted it had their eye on the Magna Carta..
In 1776 American patriots, inspired by that long-ago defiance, dared to pick up arms against another English king and to demand even more far-reaching rights.
It established the principle that taxation must be tied to representation and paved the way for the creation of Parliament.
Reissued by King John\'s successors it protected the Church, banned unlawful imprisonment, and set limits to the exercise of royal power.
Jones\'s riveting narrative follows the story of the Magna Carta\'s creation, its failure, and the war that subsequently engulfed England, and charts the high points in its unexpected afterlife.
The fragile peace it established would last only two months, but its principles have reverberated over the centuries.
At the time of its creation the Magna Carta was just a peace treaty drafted by a group of rebel barons who were tired of the king\'s high taxes, arbitrary justice, and endless foreign wars.
But what was this strange document and how did it gain such legendary status? Dan Jones takes us back to the turbulent year of 1215, when, beset by foreign crises and cornered by a growing domestic rebellion, King John reluctantly agreed to fix his seal to a document that would change the course of history.
Its principles--even its language--can be found in our Bill of Rights and in the Constitution.
The Magna Carta is revered around the world as the founding document of Western liberty. --Antonia Fraser From the New York Times bestselling author of The Plantagenets, a lively, action-packed history of how the Magna Carta came to be -- by the author of Crusaders.
Dan Jones has an enviable gift for telling a dramatic story while at the same time inviting us to consider serious topics like Liberty and the seeds of representative government
