I am haphazardly filling a few gaps in my knowledge of British history and I am currently reading Trevelyan's England Under the Stuarts because his name often came up when I overheard my friends who were history students talking about Cromwell, the Restoration, etc. However, I am finding his inflated writing style rather challenging. I find that his "literary" prose tends to get in the way of clarity: one needs to already know the general facts in order to figure out what he is saying.
I´m not historian, but I've reat that autor. I believe that history accounts should deal with some facts and valid interpretation, to enhance reasonable explanations or descriptions. As many historians actually do.
I think that Trevelyan gives you a sounding picture, but it needs to contrast. Then, I think his historical account is frequently incomplete in order to privilege the narrative.
I would broadly advise against this sort of approach if you wish to learn about a period relatively new to you. If a nineteenth century historian like Trevelyan is still being widely circulated it is far more likely to be a function of literary style than content - the affectation you are finding difficult is its primary merit.
Historical fields progress much faster than is often assumed and historical works invariably have a shelf life. Trevelyan himself was writing in response to what he perceived to be a rapid accumulation of new evidence which had rendered older accounts obsolete... and so in turn is his own account.
For example, looking at Coward and Gaunt's The Stuart Age, and Stroud's Stuart England I note both of them denote a fair bit of space early on to historiography, which is a little unusual for introductory books and would suggest there have been substantial shifts in both evidence and interpretation.
In general I would suggest when approaching a field afresh to begin with a broad introductory work published in the last thirty years - preferably one published for undergraduates rather than a popular book, if you can bear the inferiority of prose. Trevelyan might prove interesting once you know about the period but is unlikely to be a good guide to it.
Thanks, Robert Bracey. I figured my foray wasn't the best but I don't have privileges at a university library where I now live, whereas I did happen to have a copy of T's book that I had salvaged from a pile of discards. Here's an interesting tidbit that doesn't surprise me:
"Trevelyan's reputation as an historian barely survived his death in 1962. He is now amongst the great unread, widely regarded by the professionals of a later generation as a pontificating old windbag, as short on cutting edge as on reliable facts." — Roy Jenkins, Portraits and Miniatures (2011). p. 254.
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