乔治三世：英国最被误解的君主的生活和统治[有声读物]

乔治三世，英国在位时间最长的国王，在历史上被称为“这个时代最残酷的暴君”（托马斯·潘恩，18世纪），“一位对这个国家造成了比任何其他现代英国国王更深刻和持久伤害的君主”（韦赫·莱基，19世纪），“英国最灾难性的国王之一”（杰赫·普拉姆，20世纪），以及一位傲慢的国王，坎普和邪恶的音乐君主汉密尔顿（21世纪）。安德鲁·罗伯茨（Andrew Roberts）精彩的新传记持完全相反的观点。它令人信服地将乔治描绘成一个聪明、仁慈、恪守国家宪法的人，并且（作为政府首脑和国家元首）以强烈的荣誉感和责任感在18世纪政治动荡中航行。他是一位忠诚的丈夫和家庭成员，是艺术和科学的伟大赞助人，热衷于提高英国的农业能力，并决心让她的视野走向全球。
这本书对美国独立战争进行了详细的修正主义描述，其中有说服力地驳斥了《独立宣言》的大部分内容。在后来的一场战争中，它显示了乔治对威廉·皮特的支持对与拿破仑的战斗至关重要。它对乔治可怕的疾病做出了可信的现代诊断，在他生命的最后10年里，这种疾病夺走了他的心智——他对大众想象力的另一个主要主张。罗伯茨认为，乔治三世不是暴君或无能者，而是我们最令人敬佩的君主之一。乔治三世（George III）向我们展示了英国最杰出的历史学家之一，他最精彩的一面。
George III: The Life and Reign of Britain’s Most Misunderstood Monarch [Audiobook]
George III, Britain’s longest-reigning king, has gone down in history as ‘the cruellest tyrant of this age’ (Thomas Paine, 18th century), ‘a sovereign who inflicted more profound and enduring injuries upon this country than any other modern English king’ (WEH Lecky, 19th century), ‘one of England’s most disastrous kings’ (JH Plumb, 20th century) and as the pompous, camp and sinister monarch of the musical Hamilton (21st century). Andrew Roberts’ magnificent new biography takes entirely the opposite view. It convincingly portrays George as intelligent, benevolent, scrupulously devoted to the constitution of his country and (as head of government as well as head of state) navigating the turbulence of 18th-century politics with a strong sense of honour and duty. He was a devoted husband and family man, a great patron of the arts and sciences, keen (‘Farmer George’) to advance Britain’s agricultural capacity and determined that her horizons should be global.
The book gives a detailed, revisionist account of the American War of Independence, amongst other things persuasively taking apart a significant proportion of the Declaration of Independence. In a later war, it shows how George’s support for William Pitt was crucial to the battle against Napoleon. And it makes a credible, modern diagnosis of George’s terrible malady that robbed him of his mind for the last 10 years of his life – his other main claim to the popular imagination. Roberts argues that, far from being a tyrant or incompetent, George III was one of our most admirable monarchs. George III shows one of Britain’s premier historians at his sparkling best.

OR