PositiveNew StatesmanMarr’s interest, as his title suggests, is less in reporting the changing times than spotlighting the main players ... If Elizabethans were a novel read by Martians, they would complain the plot lacked credibility: how could these belligerent, class-obsessed Brits change both so much and so little over one reign? ... All of which shows what rich terrain Marr has to traverse, and there can be no better guide to the Elizabethan landscape. Having been at the vanguard of journalism for the past 30 years, Marr has interviewed many of the figures he discusses ... At the heart of his plot is the irony that we have been so busy falling out over whether or not to be European that we failed to notice we’ve become American.
