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Eagle and the Hart : The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor (2024, Hardcover)
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The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Castor, Helen [Hardcover]
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherSimon & Schuster
ISBN-10198213920X
ISBN-139781982139209
eBay Product ID (ePID)5065350430
Product Key Features
Book TitleEagle and the Hart : the Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
Number of Pages576 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year2024
TopicEurope / Great Britain / Norman Conquest to Late Medieval (1066-1485), Royalty, Europe / Great Britain / General, Historical
IllustratorYes
GenreBiography & Autobiography, History
AuthorHelen Castor
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.6 in
Item Weight28.6 Oz
Item Length9.2 in
Item Width6.2 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2024-028922
ReviewsPRAISE FOR JOAN OF ARC : "Convincing and gripping . . . A highly satisfying biography . . . Castor's great coup is in framing this biography within another context. . . . It puts the women back into the story. . . . Castor's book is an important way of returning Joan's 'star' to the realm where it belongs, the human one." -- New York Times Book Review "A book that shows vividly what Joan meant to those in her own time, politically and militarily . . . Fascinating." -- New Yorker "Popular history at its best: pacy, clear and undergirded with a formidable array of scholarly footnotes. Helen Castor shows how well it can be done." -- Daily Telegraph, "The book is astonishingly good. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is both a gripping, moving, deeply humane study of two contrasting cousins, and a clear-eyed dissection of late medieval England's polity." --Dan Jones, History, Etc., "Helen Castor is the historian's historian and the writer's writer. She combines exceptional scholarship with acute psychological insight and gorgeous, pulsating prose. The Eagle and the Hart is a tour de force: a thrilling tale of royal rivalry and a brilliant dissection of the dark heart of political power--both in the 14th century and for all time." -- Jessie Childs, author of The Siege of Loyalty House, "[An] exhaustively researched and beautifully written account . . . The Eagle and the Hart reads not just as a political epic but as a timely reflection on both the dangers of egomaniacal rulers and the challenges facing those who replace them." --Katherine Harvey, The Times (UK), " The Eagle and the Hart makes clear why this consequential moment in English history so captured Shakespeare's imagination. In recounting the gripping story of how Henry of Bolingbroke came to seize the crown of his cousin Richard II, Helen Castor brings their lives as well as this politically fraught (and still resonant) period to life. It is a massive and deeply researched undertaking, beautifully told, and a richly rewarding read." -- James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, "It is the measure of her genius for narrative and character that the tale she tells does not remotely suffer from comparison with Shakespeare. Two men of remarkable but opposed talent, yoked together in mutual hatred, in death as in life, each doomed forever to be defined by the other, here is tragedy indeed. There is no book published this year, novels included, that if found richer in character, no plot more taut." --Tom Holland, Spectator Best Books of the Year, " The Eagle and the Hart brings the 14th century to life in all its gaudy colour, terrifying bloodletting, and high drama. A book to feast on." -- London Evening Standard, "A dazzling tour de force of epic royal history: a compulsive, unputdownable real-life thriller, a gripping portrait of ruthless power politics, and a study of British tyranny based on deep archival research and masterful scholarship. A tragedy of personality, paranoia, and megalomania written with delicacy and elegance by one of Britain's most brilliant historians at the top of her game." --Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity and Jerusalem: The Biography
Dewey Edition23/eng/20240808
TitleLeadingThe
Dewey Decimal942.03/80922
SynopsisFrom an acclaimed historian and author comes an epic history: the dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose lives played out in extraordinary parallel, until Henry deposed the tyrant Richard and declared himself King of England. Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare's most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses , Helen Castor. Richard had birthright on his side, and a profound belief in his own God-given majesty. But beyond that, he lacked all qualities of leadership. A narcissist who did not understand or accept the principles that underpinned his rule, he was neither a warrior defending his kingdom, nor a lawgiver whose justice protected his people. Instead, he declared that "his laws were in his own mouth," and acted accordingly. He sought to define as treason any resistance to his will and recruited a private army loyal to himself rather than the realm--and he intended to destroy those who tried to restrain him. Henry was everything Richard was not: a leader who inspired both loyalty and friendship, a soldier and a chivalric hero, dutiful, responsible, principled. After years of tension and conflict, Richard banished him and seized his vast inheritance. Richard had been crowned a king but he had become a tyrant, and as a tyrant--ruling by arbitrary will rather than established law--he was deposed by his cousin Henry, the only possible candidate to take his place. Henry was welcomed as a liberator, a champion of the people against his predecessor's paranoid despotism. But within months he too was facing rebellion. Men knew that a deposer could in turn be deposed, and the new king found himself buffeted by unrest and by chronic ill-health until he seemed a shadow of his former self, trapped by political uncertainty and troubled by these signs that God might not, after all, endorse his actions. Captivating, immersive, and highly relevant to today's times, The Eagle and the Hart is a story about what happens when a ruler prioritizes power over the interests of his own people. When a ruler demands loyalty to himself as an individual, rather than duty to the established constitution, and when he seeks to reshape reality rather than concede the force of verifiable truths. Above all, it is a story about how a nation was brought to the brink of catastrophe and disintegration--and, in the end, how it was brought back., "Convincing and gripping … [A] highly satisfying biography … Castor's great coup is in framing this biography within another context… It puts the women back into the story… Castor's book is another important way of returning Joan's 'star' to the realm where it belongs, the human one." - The New York Times Book Review, 'A book that shows vividly what Joan meant to those in her own time, politically and militarily … Fascinating." -The New Yorker, Praise for She-Wolves, "An accomplished and elegant historian." -The New York Times Book Review, Praise for Blood And Roses, "A master of every weapon in the modern historian's arsenal… Castor has made the whole century live again." -The New York Times Book Review
LC Classification NumberDA235.C37 2024
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