The Sun Rising
'A majestic account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good' PETER FRANKOPAN
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The Sun Rising
Narrated by:
Alix Dunmore
Buy Now for ₹667.71
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Narrated by:
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Alix Dunmore
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Written by:
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Anna Whitelock
A panoramic history of the arrival of the Stuarts, and how the reign of King James I saw England reach new corners of the globe
'A majestic, brilliant account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good' PETER FRANKOPAN
'With its gripping storytelling combined with historical rigour, The Sun Rising is just the right kind of zesty treatment a neglected period needs. Fresh and fabulous' LUCY WORSLEY
In 1603 England was on the edge of crisis. Queen Elizabeth I had died, bringing the Tudor line to an end.
Enter King James, who reached London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. James established a new dynasty on the English throne and the first ‘united’ kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales was born. The Stuarts had arrived.
But first, this new ‘Great Britain’ had to play catch up. England was behind, but James’s global ambitions began to shift the tide. As ships departed London for America, Russia, Persia, India and Japan, as the fledgling East India Company began to intertwine ever closer with the crown and as the English began to travel beyond the bounds of their island in greater numbers than ever before, the seeds of the future British Empire were sown.
Long overshadowed by the glory of Elizabeth I and the fatal nadir of Charles I, the reign of the first King of Great Britain is at last told in a new light. Taking in everything from the historic voyage of the Mayflower to the alliance between James and the Persian shah over a joint love of silk, The Sun Rising revolutionises our understanding of the early seventeenth century and the figures that forged a global Britain.©2025 Anna Whitelock (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
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Critic Reviews
Well-informed, fluid and fascinating (Gerard DeGroot)
A refreshing break with the Anglo-centricity of so much recent writing on James VI and I (Michael Questier)
Provocative . . . Whitelock offers a fresh way of understanding not only the Jacobean commercial revolution but also the origins of Great Britain’s great colonial enterprise (Kathryn Hughes)
Anna Whitelock proves a sure-footed and eloquent guide to James’s reign . . . What is striking when one reads this primer is that, exactly four centuries after James’s death, Britain finds itself once again playing catch-up, uncertain of its place in the world, and lacking the kind of identity that was forged in the seventeenth century (Paul Lay)
A majestic, brilliant account of the birth of an empire. Spectacularly good (PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads)
Does away with conventional royal biography. This rich and evocative book takes us far from Whitehall in pursuit of James’ ambitious vision for a united, global Britain. Moving from the plantations of Ireland and trading posts in Indonesia to the courts of Japan and Russia, the book shows us the strange birth of an empire and pushes beyond anglocentric history (Alice Hunt)
With its gripping storytelling combined with historical rigour, The Sun Rising is just the right kind of zesty treatment a neglected period needs. Fresh and fabulous (LUCY WORSLEY)
Richly evocative and brilliantly provocative, The Sun Rising transports its readers far from Whitehall in pursuit of James I’s vision for a united, global Britain. From the plantations of Ireland and trading posts in Indonesia to the courts of Russia and Japan, Anna Whitelock’s compelling narrative looks afresh at James I, and at the idea of Britain that emerged during his reign – and which still resonates today (ALICE HUNT, author of Republic: Britain's Revolutionary Decade, 1649-1660)
Stereotypes are out; new ways of defining James and his world are in . . . Whitelock’s exploration of how political, cultural and commercial interests interlocked in James’s policymaking, so expanding conceptions of state power, is game-changing (JOHN GUY)
Less a biographical study of the first Stuart king and more an ambitious, evocative “reframing” of James I’s reign, which attempts to show how he laid the foundations for the future empire (Mark Broatch)
Does a terrific job of communicating the ways in which James and his time wereboth incredibly like and unlike our own (Stephen Bush)
A panoramic view of Jacobean England . . . Studded throughout are fascinating episodes . . . Naturally, given Whitelock’s experience, the book is beautifully written by an author with an eye for detail and anecdote. In each chapter, Jacobean-era personalities, from Pocahontas to adventurers William Adams and John Saris to mariner Nathaniel Courthope, are brought to stunning life: James’s world emerges as a colourful and glittering one (Steven Veerapen)
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