I read Andrew Roberts’ biography of Churchill a few years ago which I very much enjoyed. This similar sized book on George III is just as readable and interesting, and very much a education for me because I know relatively little about the history of the late 18th C. George’s reign stretched from 1760 to 1820, but he was incapacitated for much of the last 10 years, so the core of the book deals with his active engagement with events between 1760 and 1810. The two major historical events of this time were the American war of independence followed by the French revolution and Napoleonic era. It’s George’s reputation in the United States as a inhumane tyrant that Roberts is most keen to revise. He makes a very good case that George was the opposite; humane, educated, and most importantly a stickler for the English constitution and the place of parliament. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the light it shines on the gradual withdrawal of the monarch from executive power during George’s reign, and the consolidation of the prime minister as the lead political actor in the British system. Roberts writes very well and there are some very entertaining moments, such as a very funny line on an MP called George Gordon, a well known libertine, who had called the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘The Whore of Babylon’. “A wit commented that Gordon had finally met a whore he didn’t like”. One of the tragedies of the story is George’s opposition to catholic emancipation, which if it had been enacted would have allowed Ireland to become an equal member of the united kingdom. Instead the exclusion of much of the population from public life simply fermented resentment of the English, which only worsened throughout the rest of the 19th C. and lead to the tragic civil war and partition. One would have thought that the British establishment might have learnt something from the American independence movement and acted to re-empt separatist sentiment by giving ground early. Unfortunately not. The book gives lots of anecdotal flavour of the late 18th C. and I’m eager to read more about that era. I might try Andrew Roberts’ own Napoleon biography in the near future. All in all an excellent read. I’m very glad I made time for it.