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

A picturesque portrait of the nascent Great Britain in an extraordinary age of unification, expansion and commercial experimentation. With sympathy and vigour, Anna Whitelock showcases many facets of this emerging world at home and overseas, ruled over by a fascinating monarch too often neglected and misunderstood by posterity

MALCOLM GASKILL, author of The Ruin of All Witches

A very lucid, exciting and well-researched narrative of a part of British history which has been relatively neglected and yet is of vital and enduring importance for the development of Britain

RONALD HUTTON, author of The Witch

With shrewd reasoning and in lucid prose, Professor Anna Whitelock refuses the vision of James VI and I as an insular caretaker king, uncomfortably sandwiched between the glittering Elizabeth and the ill-fated Charles. Here, instead, is a focal reign in which the British reached tendrils out into the corners of the globe and entwined themselves with the history of the world. A scintillating and vital read

SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB, author of Six Queens: The Wives of Henry VIII

Fascinating, razor-sharp and shot through with uncanny resonances for the interesting times in which we live, The Sun Rising is the brilliantly realised story of James I and the men who, under his rule, sailed the world in search of power and profit. With wit and acute insight, in a page-turning read, Anna Whitelock shows us the seventeenth-century making of 'Global Britain'

HELEN CASTOR, author of She-Wolves