Takes some perseverance, but worth it. Fascinating insight on that period. ( )

Like “The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England”, this is a very lively history book. Don’t expect dry facts. Expect instead an engaging narrative throughout.

All that can be covered in Restoration Britain is covered, including the different classes, the vast array of ailments, and the Great Fire. The main focus is on England, though Scotland and Wales are mentioned here and there.

If you’re interested in seventeenth-century history – or even if you aren’t – give this a try. ( )

I enjoyed this but not as much as the first book in the series. I think there is more material for Mortimer to draw from, so it is a longish book. Still, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book. ( )

I liked a lot about the Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain, mainly the details about daily life and travel that give context to one of my favorite eras of literature back in my university days. The topics are fairly wide-ranging and do give a good picture of how society was changing in the early modern era.

There is a lot to not like, too. There are no maps or diagrams, which are sorely needed when describing the spread of the Great Fire of London in 1666, or comparing different architectural styles that were coming into vogue. While there are color plates with portraits of famous people or photos of significant buildings or art, much is assumed the reader will already be familiar with or has readily accessible. (Frankly, I had a difficult time tracking down easy-reference maps of London in 1666.)

It would have also been very useful to have a list of people featured with brief descriptions. There is a bibliography, but not a good descriptive list of who people are, when they lived, or what they did. Since Mortimer relies on many different sources and jumps between them according to topic, he also jumps between years, and it can be difficult to keep track of everyone.

While this uses a "Time Traveler Guide" concept, it assumes the time traveler is a wealthy white male. Topics about women or minorities - or the vast majority of ordinary men - only come up as they are relevant to the assumed time traveler. This is less than ideal, and was frustrating when I wanted to know about certain very ordinary facts of life. Mortimer goes into great detail about toilet things - he mentions shitting in fireplaces, muckrakers, even men's drawers and other underclothes - but he spares not a single word about menstruation. It seems this is pretty vital information for any time traveler who menstruates, no?

Further, there were two places where Mortimer's white-male interests were painfully clear and made me distrust most of his social commentary: one, he describes how the social structure of the time was misogynistic as an effect of its patriarchy and the Great Chain of Being, then denies that this is actually misogyny since people don't really hate women and besides, women themselves think they are lesser and impure (has Mortimer ever really engaged with the concept of structural misogyny?); two, in the brief section on ethnic minorities, he talks about slavery and explains that non-white people are typically foreign visitors and treated badly, or enslaved people from The Plantations (ie: colonies), and they have no freedom, yet he also describes several black servants who live freely in their own homes when not at work, just like white servants, and seemingly not actually enslaved. Both times, his descriptions and his commentary are at odds, and he dismisses the issues as not relevant.

Most of the book seems to come from three places: Samuel Pepys's and John Evelyn's diaries for daily life in London, and Celia Fienne's journal for descriptions of other places. Where sources diverge, they are mainly also wealthy men and usually of London. It is therefore somewhat understandable that so much of the focus of the book is on the upper classes in London and especially men, but nonetheless this seems to negate the whole point of a Time Traveler's Guide.

Besides, I know for a fact that Pepys referred to his wife's menstruation (he calls it her Mois and her "old trouble") and even John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, refers to it in his poetry, which Mortimer refers to multiple times for its usefulness in shedding light on less socially acceptable opinions. This is only one thing I found to be a noticeable gap in the book, but what else is missing? Why is there so little focus on how ordinary people engaged with the many diversions that the wealthy did? Why is it titled "Restoration Britain" when it's more truly "Restoration London, with occasional sidetrips to look at Scotland through fieldglasses or maybe picnic in Oxford".

I wish the book had been better. It could have been. But the dismissal of women and lack of concern for minorities, except when either affect Mortimer's imagined self, means I can't recommend this book or series to anyone, and I have to hope that something better exists. ( )

Read for #NonfictionNovember2017 Scholarship category.

I love Ian Mortimer's Time Traveller's histories. This is the second I've read in the series and the first one that I've read on an era that I don't know much about. The Restoration has never been a focus so this book taught me quite a few things. The author does his best to put you in the era by giving you the sights and smells as if you were actually walking down the street in a village, town or city. It really does seem like you're there by his descriptions. I still have one more in this set to read and I hope that he continues with these books, they're one of my new favorites in the history genre. ( )