2 comments about Henry VI (The English Monarchs Series).

1. Bertram Wolffe's biography is readable and entertaining, however, the vast majority of the book describes Henry's relationship with France and how he squandered his father's legacy in Normandy. As mentioned in a previous review, the book is woefully short on detail regarding the Wars of the Roses. The book could have been much more entertaining and informative had it included more detail regarding the last years of Henry's life and the Wars of the Roses.



2. Bertram Wolffe's biography on Henry VI actually read more like a study of politics instead of a biography of a king. The politics involves the inner working of the court of Henry VI as he grew from a child king to an adult king. We really don't get to know Henry personally but understand him by his official actions as King of England and working of his advisors, favorites and office holders.
   
   But one thing the author make very clear in this book was that Henry VI was truly an incompetent man and his ineptitude as a ruler marked him as an unworthy monarch. But its also clear that he was let down by almost everyone around him. Premature death of his father left a power vacuum around the young king and Henry was unlucky enough to have self-interest men around him who probably ruined him during his formative years. Foundation of his father kept things stable for awhile but cracks began to show because Henry wasn't capable and neither were men around him. In some ways, he seem to compared favorably with Henry III although the third Henry was more lucky.
   
   If there is a major weakness in this book, it appears that the book get weaker as Henry VI get weaker on the throne. His last ten years get a mere 15 pages even although it was probably one of the more exciting parts of his personal life.
   
   This book appears to be well researched and well written but it seem to be geared toward people who are well versed in English mediveal history. A novice reading this book may feel bit overwhelmed by massive amount of information regarding English mediveal politics of this time period.
   
   Overall, this book does come highly recommended, although not a great biography of any sort, its a great study of English politics prior to the War of the Roses. Its explained the working of the English policies and reflects well why they lost all that Henry V have won for them.

3 comments about The Cavalryman (The Roman World Series).

1. As usual Peter Connolly produces an excellent little booklet to accompany "The Legionary" and the various other books in this series on the Roman world. Both "The Legionary" and this one deal with the life of Tiberius Claudius Maximus who lived in the time of Trajan. His life in the army comprised both serving as a legionary and then later as a cavalryman in the Emperor's forces in the region of Romania, then called Dacia. This is the second part of his story, this time serving as a cavalryman. Connolly being an experimental archeologist knows what he is talking about and provides detailed reconstructive drawings of his own reconstructed arms, saddles, armour and whatnot required by a cavalryman of the time. In addition he is a good artist and provides some quite atmospheric portrayals of life in the Roman army.

   The book is thin but informative and packed with wonderful illustrations. Originally intended for a younger audience it is nevertheless a superb piece of work and is useful for anyone interested in the Roman army whether he/she be a wargamer, modeller or reenactor. Not as serious as the Osprey series or as simple minded (and inaccurate) as much of historical fare now available for children, this book is never far from view on my bookshelf merely for the enjoyment of leafing through its pages.

   A wonderful booklet.




2. Connoly's book is a good read that is quick and filled with beautiful illustrations. Details are wonderful, you feel like you are there when you read it. This book guarantees that I will collect the rest in the series.

   Michael Huye




3. Peter Connolloy has again produced a book useful to those engaged in teaching and learning about Roman history. The illustrations are, as usual, both striking and historically accurate.

2 comments about SAINT CIARAN: The Tale of a Saint of Ireland.

1. I like this book because my son's name is Ciaran and it's fun to read to him since he has an unusual name for here in the US. The art is gorgeous and the pictures really tell the heart of the story. The actual prose story skips around a bit since it covers St. Ciaran's whole life. Though not stellar storytelling, the art make it worthwhile.



2. Born in the early sixth century, this little-know saint was called to bring God's word to Godless Ireland.
   
   (originally attempted to review this when the book first came out, but unfortunately the template did not "take.")

No comments about Elizabeth I: The Golden Reign of Gloriana (English Monarchs-Treasures from the National Archives) (English Monarchs-Treasures from the National Archives).

No comments about The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy, 1491-1499 (History/prehistory & Medieval History).

No comments about JFK and His Irish Heritage.

2 comments about Fools and Jesters at the English Court.

1. How can you take a subject like this and make it boring? Read the book and find out.



2. The morning after I finished reading Fools and Jesters of the English Court by John Southworth, I eagerly abandoned my bed and headed over to the Medieval Galleries at the Metropolitan Musuem of Art. I was anxious to test my newfound knowledge and see how many authentic English fools I could identify in the tapestries and stained glass. I knew the best clues would not be as obvious as the traditional jester's cap of bells. Now I know better than that. For casual English history buffs like me, Fools and Jesters of the English Court is an intriguing read, throwing an intensely revealing spotlight on these performers of old and their sometimes complex roles in medieval English society. However, for as many clever and shrewd "fools" who held unique positions of influence over their royal companions, there were just as many whose lives and minds were starkly simple by contrast. Southworth's book is a thorough education in this highly specific slice of England's history and will not be a quick, easy read for anyone not already possessing a related degree. However, for the rest of us, it is worth taking moments away to refer to the English royal family tree or to take the occasional grounding glance at a historical time line to get the best overall understanding of the material. Even without this effort, though, there are many anecdotes throughout that provide a satisfying look backwards at personalities that seldom make it through the filter of historical repetition -- of significant dates; of shocking statistics of battles and plagues; of scandal and brutality attributed to kings and queens.

1 comments about George Moore, 1852-1933.

1. Unlike Yeats, Joyce, or James, George Moore did not have a strong and confident sense of his own identity, and has in consequence remained a rather dim and shadowy figure on the literary landscape of his time. Frazier has succeeded uncannily in getting inside Moore's skin, almost to the point of understanding him better than he understood himself. For the first time the many divergent facets of Moore's career come together in a coherent and gripping narrative. We see that though his enthusiasms, literary loyalties, and amorous propensities were as changeable as the clouds above Lake Carra, Moore was tenacious in a Quixotic quest for truth and freedom. His witty, indiscreet conversation, still so fresh in the pages of Hail and Farewell, Avowals, and Conversations in Ebury Street, was calculated to puncture many a pompous ego. A master of ridicule, he was repaid in kind. But a lifetime of struggle against British philistinism, Irish parochialism, and French cliquism cannot be written off as mere clowning. Moore often let himself down, yet his achievement as a whole deserves the epithet "heroic." Had Irish Catholics and Nationalists, in particular, listened to his enlightened critique, they might have spared themselves a century of repression, mystification, and violence. Frazier illuminates Moore's sexuality (especially his relationships with Pearl Craigie and Lady Cunard) with Starr-like thoroughness. This serves to enhance our appreciation of his fiction: masterpieces such as Muslin, The Lake (1921 version), and In Single Strictness take on a new glow as we discover the erotic humus from which they spring, while the lesser or flawed works take on new interest as fragments of a great confession. Frazier has buried the George Moore of stale gossip and caricature and replaced it with a portrait as distinguished as Manet's on the front cover -- a portrait securely grounded in wide-ranging historical research.

3 comments about Our Hidden Lives: The Everyday Diaries Of A Forgotten Britain 1945-1948.

1. Living in the U.S. in the 21st Century, it is hard to imagine how grim life was for ordinary people in post WWII Britain: rationing of basic staples, wearing the same clothes for years, queues, dramatic political changes. All of these are recorded in the diaries of five Britons. Yes, there are numerous anti-Semitic remarks, and they are most certainly offensive. But the entries reflect the times when people were looking to blame somebody for their difficult lives. It was also the time when Jewish freedom fighters had captured and executed two British soldiers. What is important is that these diaries accurately reflect what those people felt 60 years ago and should be considered to be historical documents.



2. This book is a selection of entries from a number of diaries kept by the Mass Observationists during the 1940s. Entries were selected to give a spread of perspectives from all contributors, and in large measure it has been successful in this. Unfortunately, it contains a disproportionately large number of grossly anti-Semitic statements, which are inflammatory and highly offensive. Everyone I know who has seen this book agrees that the offending statements do nothing to enhance the value of the book as a historical document. Had the diaries contained the same number of pornographic, rather than anti-Semitic, statements, I wonder if the editor and publisher would have been so ready to include them. However, complaints to the publishers, to the newspaper reviewer who praised the writers, and to the press, brought no response of any kind, despite the number of people who signed up to object. This lack of response by all involved is deeply disturbing.
   
   For this reason I cannot recommend this book.



3. This book is based on a mass observation, sociological study carried out in England immediately after WW2. It focuses on the dairy entries of 5 random individuals, 2 women and 3 men, all from different backgrounds, walks of life, parts of Country and age groups. The entries offer a fascinating insight into the life and times of Post War England, an often overlooked period in history which saw continued poverty and austerity, political disillusionment and the beginnings of radical social changes and beliefs that the war had begun and which gathered momemtum at this time, forming the foundations of the modern UK.
   Real, engaging, utterly fascinating and compelling. You love and sometimes loath the participants, B.Charles is quite a hostile, fascist and snobbish antiques dealer. My personal favourite was Maggie Joy Blunt, a modern single girl trying to make her way in the world as a writer. Really fasicinating social history.

2 comments about Letters Concerning the English Nation (Oxford World's Classics).

1. Before this 1994 Oxford University Press Edition, ENGLISH-language Readers of Voltaire's famous Book had to make do with Translations from the FRENCH 'Lettres Philosophiques'. Voltaire, however, began writing the Book during his two and a half year stay in ENGLAND, and wrote over half the Letters in ENGLISH. This first critical Edition of the 'Letters' in ENGLISH (the remaining eight Letters are presented in contemporary Translation) are immediately more fresh, more witty, more pointed, more fluid, more Voltairean, than the pallid Translations of other Editions on offer, and, with their characteristic 18th century Spelling (e.g. today's words ending in 'c' ending in 'k', like 'Publick') and Orthography (Nouns capitalised, proper Nouns italicised), give one the pleasurable Feeling of reading a Contemporary of Swift's or Pope's.

   Anyone hoping for a Bill Bryson-like Travelogue into the Manners and distinctive Details of the ENGLISH, or a FRENCH 'Gulliver's Travels', will be disappointed. The 'Letters' are a Travelogue of Enlightenment Ideas, and can be divided into three Sections - Religion (Voltaire celebrating the Tolerance of many Religions in ENGLAND compared to the Catholic Tyranny in FRANCE); Philosophy/Science (offering a breathless Digest of exciting new Theories and Discoveries by Locke and Newton), and Literature (decrying the barbarous Irregularities of English theatre compared to the coolly classical French, but praising the occasional poetic Vividness and greater dramatic Force of Shakespeare - how nice of him!). Voltaire often distorts political Conditions in ENGLAND (e.g. the economic Persecution of Catholics) to extol the Country as a Beacon of Liberty.

   Although Voltaire writes ENGLISH very well (considering he had only begun learning it the Year before commencing the 'Letters'), his Language lacks the satiric Bite and linguistic Inventiveness of a Swift or Gay, and so feels comparitively thin. Although there is a complex Irony working throughout, with the 'I' of the fictional Letter-Writer shifting functions (satirical, explanatory etc.) depending on the Subject, the most enjoyable Parts are those most straightforwardly polemical, such as the Attack on Reactionaries hostile to the Growth of Science, or the refreshingly irreverant Approach to the Bard.

   How you enjoy these Letters depends on how much Voltaire you can take. His brave Attacks on Intolerance, Fanaticism and Absolutism can never be forgotten, and his Advocacy of the actively Intellectual over the submissively Superstitious was crucial in developing the modern Era; but his relentless Promotion of Reason can itself appear intolerant, shortsighted and incapable of dealing with more inexplicable Mysteries. He mocks the Ancients' philosophical and scientific Errors, asserting the linear Progress of History and human Endeavour, assuming, as did those ancients, that his Age has got everything right. The 25th Letter exposes the limits and inflexibility of Voltaire - taking uncontextualised Excerpts from Pascal's 'Pensees', he attempts to demolish the Jansenist's Christian Logic, but only exposes himself as a poor Reader forever closed to true Mystery, Poetry and Complexity.

   This critical Edition includes a valuable Introduction detailing Voltaire's Experiences in England, contextualising the Letters and proving the Importance on his artistic Development of the Writer's Contact with the ENGLISH Language. An interesting Textual Note explains the Genesis of the Work, and the Status of the various national Editions. Appendices include a long Excerpt from Voltaire's Essay (in ENGLISH) on Milton, and a biographical Appreciation by Goldsmith. The Apparatus is somewhat let down by the Notes. Because this Edition is considered a primary Text, rather than a Translation, Cronk assumes the reader to be a Student in FRENCH Literature, and neglects to translate Quotations on occasion, or to identify unfamiliar (to this Reader, anyway) Personnages.




2. This book is, justifiably, not as famous as _Candide_, but is still a great sample of Voltaire's thinking--and therefore a great example of Enlightenment discourse. In these letters Voltaire criticizes France by praising England, and begins to develop ideas about religion, democracy, and social convention that he continued to work on throughout his life. For my taste, _Philosophical Dictionary_ is more exciting, but these letters are more inviting, and also give insight into the connections between England and France that obviously lie at the heart of their historical antipathy.