A01=John Prebble
Author_John Prebble
books for men
british empire
british history
Category=NHD
culloden
dad book
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
gifts for history buffs
historical books
history
history book
history books
history books for adults
history gifts
history lovers gifts
history of britain
history of scotland
history of scotland books
history teacher gifts
military
neil oliver
non fiction
non fiction books
prince charles
rorkes drift
scottish history
scottish history books
scottish history books for adults
the battle of britain
the fifth wave
train books for men
world history
world history books
Product details
- ISBN 9780712668200
- Weight: 268g
- Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 02 May 2002
- Publisher: Vintage
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
This is the story of ordinary men and women involved in the Rebellion, who were described on the gaol registers and regimental rosters of the time as 'Common Men'. There is little in this book about Bonnie Prince Charlie and other principals of the last Jacobite Rising of 1745. Culloden recalls them by name and action, presenting the battle as it was for them, describing their life as fugitives in the glens or as prisoners in the gaols and hulks, their transportation to the Virginias or their deaths on the gallows at Kennington Common. The book begins in the rain at five o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, 16 April 1746, when the Royal Army marched out of Nairn to fight the clans on Culloden Moor. It is not a partisan book, its feeling is for the 'Common Men' on both sides - John Grant charging with Clan Chatten and seeing the white gaiters of the British infantry suddenly as the east wind lifted the cannon smoke, and Private Andrew Taylor in a red coat waiting for Clan Chatten to reach him, likening them to 'a troop of hungry wolves'. Culloden reminds us, too, that many of the men who harried the glens as ruthlessly as the Nazis in Occupied Europe were in fact Scots themselves. It recalls the fact that many men in Prince Charles' army had been forced to join him. It shows that a British foot-soldier's wish for a sup of brandy on a cold morning before battle is as much a reality as a Prince's pretensions to a throne. The detail for the story told in Culloden has come from regimental Order Books and manuals, from contemporary newspapers and magazines, from the letters and memoirs of soldiers and officers, eye-witness accounts of atrocity and persecution, and the personal stories of the victims themselves. Culloden is the story not of a Prince, but of a people.
John Prebble was born in the UK in 1915 but spent his boyhood in Canada. He became a journalist in 1934 and went on to become an historian, novelist, film-writer and the author of several highly praised plays and dramatised documentaries for BBC TV and Radio. He became interested in Culloden when he was a boy in a predominantly Scottish township in Canada. He died in January 2001.
