The book gives a detailed, revisionist account of the American Revolutionary War, persuasively taking apart a significant proportion of the Declaration of Independence, which Roberts shows to be largely Jeffersonian propaganda. He could be stubborn and self-righteous, but he was also brave, brushing aside numerous assassination attempts, galvanising his ministers and generals at moments of crisis and stoical in the face of his descent – five times during his life – into a horrifying loss of mind.

He was a devoted husband and family man, a great patron of the arts and sciences, keen to advance Britain’s agricultural capacity (‘Farmer George’) and determined that her horizons should be global. It portrays George as intelligent, benevolent, scrupulously devoted to the constitution of his country and (as head of government as well as head of state) navigating the turbulence of eighteenth-century politics with a strong sense of honour and duty. Plumb, twentieth century) and as the pompous monarch of the musical Hamilton (twenty-first century).Īndrew Roberts’s magnificent new biography takes entirely the opposite view. Lecky, nineteenth century), ‘one of England’s most disastrous kings’ (J.H. George III, Britain’s longest-reigning king, has gone down in history as ‘the cruellest tyrant of this age’ (Thomas Paine, eighteenth century), ‘a sovereign who inflicted more profound and enduring injuries upon this country than any other modern English king’ (W.E.H. *Winner of the General Society of Colonial Wars’ Distinguished Book Award, 2021* Lizzie Pickering – Author Signing and TalkĪndrew Roberts, one of Britain’s premier historians, overturns the received wisdom on George III.A Year in Books – Reading Subscriptions.Reading Together – Books for Book Clubs.

George 111 andrew roberts