Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day [Hardcover]

In the early hours of November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic who had served with the Spanish army in Flanders, was discovered in a storeroom under the Palace of Westminsterand with him, thirty-six barrels of gunpowder earmarked to obliterate Englands royal family, top officials, and members of Parliament gathered for Parliaments opening day. Had it succeeded, this Gunpowder Plota Catholic conspiracy against the recently crowned Protestant King James I and his governmentEnglish history would have been shaped by a terrorist act of unprecedented proportions.

Today Guy Fawkeswhose name has long stood for the conspiracyis among the most notorious figures in English history; and Bonfire Night, observed every November 5th to memorialize the narrowly foiled Gunpowder Plot, is one of the countrys most festive occasions. Why has the memory of this act of treason and terrorism persisted for 400 years? In Remember, Remember James Sharpe takes us back to 1605 and teases apart the tangled web of religion and politics that gave rise to the plot. And, with considerable wit, he shows how celebration of that fateful night, and the representation of Guy Fawkes, has changed over the centuries.

James Sharpes colorfully told story has wide implications. The plot of 1605 has powerful resonances today, in a time of heightened concern about ideological conflict, religious fanaticism, and terrorism. And his account of the festivities marking the momentous event comments on the role of rituals in constructing national histories.

A reminder that such religiously inspired terrorism is part of the history of the modern West.[Sharpe's] lively short book is a compressed cultural history of Guy Fawkes Day...There is plenty of interest in his analysis of the changing character of a major popular festival.James Sharpe has written an engaging essay on the changing meaning over the centuries of Guy Fawkes Day, the commemoration on November 5 of England's deliverals'