"This history offers a full, but succinct, account of William's life and influence. It outlines his career in the Netherlands before he came to the Stuart crown, it describes how a continental objective - the defeat of Louis XIV of France - became his central obsession, and it shows how the new king applied lessons and priorities learned abroad to his rule in London. The book does more than this, however. It argues William was the key to solving the chronic instability of seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland. It suggests that it took someone from beyond the island shores, with a European vision and foreign experience of handling a free political system, to end the stand-off between ruler and people which had marred the Stuart world. It argues that William was a crucial factor in Britain's emergence as a world power, and as a model of open government."--BOOK JACKET.