Holinshed's Nation

Igor Djordjevic explores the historiography of Holinshed's Chronicles through a literary lens, focusing on how Renaissance men and women read and understood historical texts. This study revaluates our understanding of Renaissance chronicle history and the impact of Holinshed on Tudor, Jacobean, and Caroline political discourse; the Chronicles emerge not as a series of rambling, digressive episodes characteristic to a dying medieval genre, but as the preserver of national memory, the teacher of prudent policy, and a builder of the commonwealth ideal.