Observing the developments towards Brexit in the UK, I came across this short book about the Magna Carta on my shelf (yeah, I know, a LTER book...) . It is not a major issue in German history class but of course we were taught the basics, as it has relevance for the development of all modern democracies. I doubt I would ever have tried to read the original text (ESL here), So as a complete novice to the matter, I enjoyed the modern-day language and the explanations given with every Article of the charter. As the author is from the USA, her modern point of reference is of course the US. I doubt I will find a German book that explains the relevance in layman terms, so this was useful for me to understand how a 800 year old charter would have relevance to modern law and statehood. Definitely not an in depth treatise, but a good primer on the subject. ( )

I wasn't sure how to take this book. There is very little historical background, very little attempt to give an account of its historical significance. What you have here is basically a modern language translation of the terms of the Charter with some added notes. I'm pretty sure I would never have read the Charter without this book - I'm not sure I'm much the wiser for having done so.

So this book was not really what I was expecting. For some reason I thought it would be more of a lead up to what occurred to get the Magna Carta signed. This is definitely not your everyday history tome. The actual dissection of the document was superfluous to me and it being the basis for more modern documents was interesting yet not enough to warrant me ever reading another book on the subject.

Would have love to have learned more about King John and the lead up to the signing of the Magna Carta, this may be because I am truly enamored with medieval England. Law discussions not so much. ( )

I'm glad to have a modern translation of Magna Carta with some basic explanatory notes, but this in not in any way to be confused with an in-depth, scholarly analysis. Then again, the title, with its infixed 'bloody' should be a dead give-away that this is not intended as a serious academic effort. Even at that I found it to be a little bit light weight, but it's better than nothing.

The main idea of this book is quite interesting, but I had several problems while reading it.

I found the language and the way things are phrased odd and out of place at times. The book reads like a number of blog posts gathered together into one book. I now that's exactly what this is, but a bit of polishing up into something more suitable for a book might have been nice.

Another thing that I personally had a problem with is that the comparisons made are strictly between the Magna Carta and U.S. law and society. This is a valid comparison and perfectly fine for its purpose, but I can make the read a bit pointless and boring for readers of other nationalities. ( )