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Divisiveness is not, however, the major theme of Mr. Goodman's textbook; and in so far as his work has a general message-as indeed it has-this must lie in the author's belief in a 'medieval consensus' which survived the revolutionary changes of the Reformation period only to be 'irrevocably fractured' in the years immediately after 1600. Such a sweeping interpretation, however rarified the issues of historical period- isation it inevitably raises, certainly deserves an airing; and Mr. Goodman is too judicious and sure-footed a historian to push it to extremes. Of the many current attempts to annihilate the traditional border-line between the 'late medieval' and the 'early modern', Mr. Goodman-as befits a historian who teaches in the same history department as Professor Denys Hay-has now produced one of the most impressive. To the genuinely old-fashioned among us, some doubts will naturally remain; and it might still be argued that the really decisive initiatives in the creation of Mr. Goodman's 'literate logic of didactic constructions, producing a plurality of often conflicting arguments' took place in the first half of the sixteenth rather than of the seventeenth century. Nor ought one to forget-not that Mr. Goodman often does-that the 'medieval consensus' may itself be the illusory outcome of our own irredeemable ignorance about what most Englishmen of the later middle ages really thought and said. How- ever, these are still deep and largely uncharted waters: one can only end by congratulating Mr. Goodman on embarking upon them in the course of a good book recommended by its publishers, accurately if quaintly, as 'a serious historical writing'. Not the least of its virtues is that there are few important themes in English history between the 1320s and 1620s entirely overlooked. Some omissions were of course inevitable; and one can only hope that readers of the Welsh History Review may be disarmed by an author who begins by admitting that 'Wales is neglected, Ireland even more so'. By modern standards, Mr. Goodman's history is quite well if not luxuriously produced and incorporates a reliable index and a genuinely useful bibliography. Portraits of the fifteen monarchs who ruled England between 1307 and 1625 adorn an enterprising cover; if they were authentic likenesses, which most of them are not, one would be tempted to the not altogether facetious thought that the kings and queens charged with the duty of personifying the late-medieval and early-modern national 'consensus' found that experience an almost infinitely dispiriting one. R. B. DOBSON York SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH KINGS. By P. Saccio. Oxford University Press, 1977. Pp. 268. £ 1.75 paper. The intention of this book is set out in the preface. It is 'intended as background reading for Shakespeare's ten history plays' and is meant primarily for 'students of Shakespeare, theatregoers and general readers interested in these Kings and these plays'. After an introductory chapter on sources and problems, Professor Saccio pursues this intention by devoting a chapter to each of Shakespeare's 'Histories'. Within each he