3 comments about Wind in the Ash Tree.

1. The marvelous sequel to "A Small Country Living", this book continues with the amusing and touching experiences of a BBC radio broadcaster's life on a tiny farm in the mountains of Wales. Her writing is wonderfully evocative, and her observations are most often funny or ironic. Think of "Under the Tuscan Sun" with looney livestock in place of the luscious food and lots more clouds and damp. Years later, Jeanine McMullen remains one of my all-time favorite writers. And if you love dogs, you'll especially enjoy her books--they're all keepers!!



2. When the hustle and bustle of modern life has you totally frazzled reach for any of Jeanine McMullen's books and slow down. Her descriptions of life on a small farm in Wales are not only delightful but a real hoot. Who would have thought a horse named Doli could create such pandominium? And her little whippet, Merlin; you will never forget some of the stunts he pulls. The goat Little Nana (rebel that she is) is also always causing one sort of trouble after another. I just wish Jeanine had written more than three books about her life in Wales.



3. When the hustle and bustle of modern life has you totally frazzled reach for any of Jeanine McMullen's books and slow down. Her descriptions of life on a small farm in Wales are not only delightful but a real hoot. Who would have thought a horse named Doli could create such pandominium? And her little whippet, Merlin; you will never forget some of the stunts he pulls. The goat Little Nana (black-hearted rebel that she is) is also always causing one sort of trouble after another. I just wish Jeanine had written more than three books about her life in Wales.

5 comments about South: The Endurance Expedition.

1. What is even more interesting than the astonishing day to day labor of mere survival in hostile elements, is the way in which these men kept up their morale, how they faced those chanllenges. Fascinating reading, every page describes hardships you can't imagine not being fatal, and yet it's written in humble and straightforward narrative. At one point when clearly they were near death from starvation, thirst, cold and exhaustion, and floundering through unmarked wilderness a last bid to reach civilization or die, he remarks merely, "We were very tired". Interestingly, at one point when he and three others are crossing a mountain pass in jeopardy of their lives on a 3 day trek trying to find a camp, each of them had the lingering feeling that there was a fourth person with them, but they only realized this when they compared notes after they reached safety. Again Shackleton refuses to sentimentalize the moment, even though he clearly believes God was literally guiding them, saying only that thanks must be given to the appropriate parties. This is dry English manliness of the type you rarely see except in parody anymore. What speaks best of these explorers qualities is that immediately after returning to civilization, after months of being in literal despair for their lives in unimaginable hardship, they rushed to enlist in the war. You'd think they would feel themselves entitled never to rise from a featherbed again. You would at least expect that their struggle for life in the rawest elements would have given them an aloof distance from mere human conflicts, or made them reluctant to kill other men. This book definitely has what The Perfect Storm lacked in excellent, tight, compelling narrative.



2. I took the book to work with me and found every possible moment to read it and totally absorb it's contents. Twenty-eight men survived the most horrendous situation imaginable by any human being...it makes the normal hardships that we live with seem trivial to say the least. In 1914, there were no cell phones, satelite systems for communication....these men were left with their resourcefulness...of which Sir Shackleton praised highly throughout the book. The leadership qualities of Sir Ernest Shackleton made it possible for them to survive, not months, but YEARS under these extremely trying circumstances. I couldn't help but wonder why a movie has not been made to depict this most amazing part of history.



3. We've had so few recently.



4. Not as concise, powerful as Worsley's "Endurance". With all the verbiage, the question remains, why did he choose this route when he had failed the Amundsen route via the Ross shelf? Surely the Wedell sea approach was fraught with too many unknowns. And why didn't he try to land when he first approached the "harbor" in the shelf? More time exploring these issues would have been better than all the daily details of the drift through the icepack. Oh well, too late now, and his brave efforts to rescue his men were grand indeed. Clearly a greater hero than a planner.



5. The gripping history by Ernest Shackleton of a an expedition that collapsed totally. While the group on the "Endurance" was rescued without loss of life, the other part of the expedition on the "Aurora" sufferd greatly. This part of the story has been emitted in later books about the expedition and was most interesting.
   Shackleton wrote with a sense of humour that is astounding, given the character of the book.

2 comments about Michael Collins: The Man Who Won the War.

1. T. Ryle Dwyer (who also wrote "Big Fellow, Long Fellow")has written a study of Michael Collins that revolves primarily around his leadership of the war of independence against England and his interaction with his compatriots and competitors in that war. Dwyer takes praticular interest in the rivalries and tensions among the leading characters in the conflict, especially those between Collins and De Valera and Cathal Brugh. Collins is presented as a complex and charismatic man whose objective was independence for his country, not personal power, and who could charm and cajole, or terrorize and assassinate with equal effectiveness in pursuit of that goal. It is a fascinating, intimate portrait of a man whose peersonality was central to the success of the independence fight, after 800 years of unsuccessful rebellions, and who, while he may not have single-handedly "won the war", was the one single factor without which the war would most likely NOT have been won. A fascinating read about a fascinating leader.



2. Dwyer tackles his Collins biography by focusing on Michael's roles as a military man and a politico. As a matter of fact, Dwyer's opening chapter addresses the speech from which his subtitle was taken: Arthur Griffith's proclamation in the Irish Dáil that Collins was "the man who won the war." From there, Dwyer explores Collins' part in the Easter Rising, his productive time in jail, and his reintroduction to the republican movement in Dublin. The core of the book is dedicated to how Collins dismantled the system of British counter-intelligence in Ireland and the subsequent retalliation, Bloody Sunday. The last thirty pages examine Collins' duty in negotiating and then defending the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Collins' assassination and the aftermath of his death are not discussed. In the epilogue, Dwyer takes a moment to reassess Collins' awe-inspiring contributions to Irish independence and the sad conflict that developed between he and de Valera. Throughout the work, it is easy to see that Dwyer is obviously an admirer of Collins and pulls no punches as he evaluates de Valera, his followers, and the anti-Treatyites. He is not afraid to inject his own opinion into the text and such commentary is part of what causes Dwyer's biography to stand out from the rest of the pack. All things considered, this book is well worth your time, especially if you already have a basic knowledge about Collins' life and would like to know more. Because this book really contains no information on Collins' younger years, his early work in London, or the months prior to his death, I would not recommend it as a good Collins biography to read first. Make Dwyer's work second or third on your list.

1 comments about The King in Love: Edwards Vll's Mistresses : Lillie, Langtry, Daisy Warwick, Alice Keppel and Others.

1. You just can't go to the source and find out what it was like to have an affair with King Edward VII in the height of the Gilded Age. Those women wrote books about their lives, but left out all the juicy details. So this is the book that gives you interesting details about how to conduct oneself as the King's "favorita.' The King himself was such an interesting character, nothing like his workaholic mother (Queen Victoria) and father (Prince Albert). In fact, he was a playholic, earning the nickname "Edward the Caresser." He loved hanging out with nouveau riche and "society," and loved to see women partying in their dazzling thousand-dollar Worth dresses, but King Edward politely decreed that women should wear new dresses at ever ball. One of the book's funniest anecdotes is told byh actress Lillie Langtry, who described the only quarrel she ever had with the king: She wore a silver and white gown to two balls in success, not knowing the king would be at both. When he saw her at the second one, he said "That damned dress again!"

No comments about The Times Great Victorian Lives: An Era in Obituaries (Times (Times Books)).

No comments about Bombay to Bloomsbury: A Biography of the Strachey Family.

5 comments about Churchill: The End of Glory : A Political Biography (Harvest/H B J Book).

1. John Charmley did not do his homework. There are so many things about Churchill he missed. He greatly understates his case that Churchill, by fighting World War II, lost Britain's empire. Far from being a vigorous and foresighted leader, Churchill was incredibly lazy and inept, and Charmley misses this. Churchill failed to prevent the spread of television, failed to stop the invention of the transistor and the integrated circuit, was completely asleep at the switch during the invention of the jet engine and the intercontinental jet airliner. And these are only a few of the things that Churchill didn't stop! Of course, it was these, combined with the continued outward spread of the Enlightenment from Europe, that lost Britain its empire. So, if the lost empire is the "fruit" of Churchill's leadership, at least let's be complete in our condemnation of the man. Otherwise, he might be seen as a leader of bottomless courage, able to inspire an entire nation to rise above itself and distinguish itself for all time, while in the bargain saving Western Civilization. Churchill knew evil when he saw it. Given how difficult it was to launch the D-Day invasion, the mind boggles at what would have happened had Britain gone down.



2. I was sorely disappointed when finishing the book, not because of poor authorship, but, on the contrary, because Charmley's abrupt ending after a laborious examination of Churchill's political career did not seem at all adequate. He begins with a lurid examination of Churchill's early life and transformation into a political maverick, assaying his beginnings as a freshman MP in 1901 to his rise as one of the most powerful statesmen in the world. Among the most engrossing, although not necessarily new, criticisms are the Prime Minister's deference to the Roosevelt administration's foreign policy, which the author believes, with very much justification, was a catalyst that helped to bring about the Cold War and the eventual dismemberment of the British Empire. Charmley also draws parallels with Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in 1938 with that of Churchill's handling of Stalin in 1945, and infers Churchill was hypocritical in his criticism of the Munich Pact, in part because of his later policies with regard to the Soviet Union. But after the chapter on the fall of the Churchill government in 1945, the book wraps itself up with a conclusion of little more than two pages; this is hardly befitting such a monumental undertaking. Charmley does not take interest in documenting Churchill's postwar exploits, and makes almost no reference to his Fulton speech or his return to power in 1951. For those already familiar with the standard "song and dance" given by most Churchill biographers, this work is definitely worth your time, but those expecting a more plenary reference on all of Churchill's political career, not just that until 1945, should look elsewhere.



3. I regard Churchill as one of the alltime overrated figures in history, and certainly enjoy seeing him cut down to size. Charmley provides a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet for Churchill haters, as he recounts in excrutiating detail the extraordinarily flawed personality of Churchill.

   After setting the stage by illustrating Churchill's early years as a relentless opportunist and self-promoter, Charmley begins to build his case that Churchill was not the great wartime leader that posterity would have us believe, and in fact did not even have a sound grasp of military operational strategy. The most glaring example is, of course, the Gallipoli Campaign, which was an unmitigated disaster and effectively ended Churchill's political career for more than two decades. Churchill had gotten his shot at the big time (by becoming First Lord of the Admiralty) and had blown it. When he got his second chance, he showed that he had learned effectively nothing in the intervening period about military operations. Throughout World War II, he would attempt to undertake various zany military campaigns, most of which were politely ignored by the Allied commanders.

   While demonstrating Churchill's ineptitude in this area, Charmley (clearly a Neville Chamberlain apologist) builds a reasonably convincing case for Chamberlain, arguing that Chamberlain was using appeasement more as a tool for buying time than anything else. Far from being the naive optimist, Chamberlain was quite sure, argues Charmley, that Hitler was not to be trusted in any agreement. While giving Hitler what he wanted, Chamberlain was quietly building up Britain's military strength for the war he was sure to come. Because one cannot create a potent fighting force overnight, Chamberlain knew he had to buy time by whatever means necessary. Churchill, by contrast, was ready to rush into war with Germany in 1937-38, when Britain was in no way prepared to fight a continental war.

   Up to this point, Charmley's treatment of Churchill is reasonable from a scholarly standpoint. He can make coherent arguments and back them up with citations and evidence. However, Charmley's main beef with Churchill has never been that he was reckless & impetuous, or that he wasn't the great military mastermind. Charmley's problem with Churchill is that he lost the British Empire. At this point, Charmley's book begins to fall apart.

   Charmley is writing from the perspective of someone who thinks the British Empire was a pretty neat thing, and wishes that Britain still had its empire, just like the good old days. In subsequent writings, Charmley has taken his argument even further, casting FDR as an anti-imperial villain who had, as one of his wartime goals, the deliberate destruction of the old colonial empires. In Charmley's opinion, the primary goal of the British High Command during World War II should have been the preservation of the British Empire. The defeat of the Nazis and containment of the Soviet Union? Sure, the British could have tried to do that also, but the preservation of the Empire was the important thing.

   In fact, the British High Command was trying to do exactly that, and was continually butting heads with General George Marshall over priorities in strategy. The US wanted as its goal the invasion of Europe proper, and had hoped to launch the Normandy campaign in 1943, a full year before D-Day. The British, by contrast, favored a peripheral approach, sending valuable resources to reclaim portions of British territory that had been seized by Germany & Japan. The British also wanted opportunities for their commanders (such as Montgomery) to win glory on the field. The concessions the US made to Britain, it can be argued, prolonged the war in Europe by up to a year.

   So Charmley's argument that Churchill did not do enough militarily to preserve the Empire is not particularly valid. Charmley probably understands this, because he also comes as close he can to stating (without actually doing it) that maybe, just maybe, Churchill might have been well-advised to cut a deal with the Nazis, keep the Empire intact, and focus on the real enemy, which was (in Charmley's conservative viewpoint) the Soviet Union. Charmley does not explicitly say this, because he would then run the risk of being lumped into the same category as the likes of David Irving. However, he makes this argument repeatedly, in as an oblique a fashion as he can muster.

   The whole problem is that Charmley bases his argument on the premise that the British Empire could in fact have been saved, and this is where the biggest flaws in this book creep in. Charmley would like to ignore the fact that the British Empire had been slowly coming apart at the seams since the Boer War. Even during Victoria's reign, Britain had been struggling to provide the resources necessary to maintain Imperial control. The attrition of World War I was effectively the final nail in the Imperial coffin; it was only a matter of time before the inevitable occurred. One only has to look at post-war France, which tried to restore its colonial empire by force, to see how things probably would have turned out for Britain.

   One can also ask the question, is Charmley's belief that the Empire deserved to be preserved valid? This is definitely a matter of perspective. Did the British Empire ultimately do more harm than good? Conservatives like Charmley and Thomas Sowell may think that the British Empire overall was a good thing, but I do not agree with that at all. When you get right down to it, the Empire was simply the subjugation by Britain of other peoples & cultures by naked military force. I don't recall too many subject people voluntarily entering the British Empire. If FDR wasn't bent on destroying the British Empire, he should have been.

   While Charmley does provide some valid criticism of Churchill in this book, overall his most important criticisms are based on some seriously flawed premises. In the end, this calls into question the ultimate scholarly value of the book. While it has certainly been controversial enough, does this book truly contribute much to the scholarly debate over Churchill and the history of the 20th century? I don't believe so.




4. While Churchill's status as an icon is entirely too uncritical of a brilliant but erratic and flawed statesman, this is hardly a good faith effort to due Churchill justice. Charmley's constant apologies, evasions and outright deception regarding Neville Chamberlain's failed and ongoing efforts at appeasement after Munich & Churchill's opposing efforts clearly stems from an agenda more to rehabilitate Chamberlain's reputation than to do justice to Churchill's actions. Charmley's deception in this area is extreme. His reference more to Chamberlain & Halifax's diaries & letters than to Churchill's for the 3 chapters leading up to Churchill's ascent to Prime Minister doesn't do him much credit nor does his uncritical and adoring acceptance of Chamberlain's evaluations of virtually everything and everyone, including Hitler of all people. To give an example, Charmley, disregards 3 separate accounts of Churchill not rising to applaud Chamberlin's speech in the House of Commons upon his return from Munich as not being either recorded at the time or of being suspect due to malice toward Chamberlain. This same `critical' eye paints Chamberlain as being relentlessly opposed to Hitler after Hitler's entry into Prague in May 1939 in spite of Chamberlin's constant well documented efforts to continue appeasement after that time. He even neglects to mention Chamberlin's efforts to continue appeasement negotiations that continued even after Poland's invasion, not even mentioning something as significant as the Cabinet's revolt and ultimatum to Chamberlain that he must put a deadline on negotiations to Hitler & withdrawal from Poland on the 2nd day after Poland's invasion. All in all this book has some valid debunking of Churchill's myth and questions about the long term costs of Churchill's decisions but it is at times blatantly deceptive and far, far too uncritical of Churchill's rivals, none of whom except Eden are subject to much criticism.



5. Charmley, and some his reviewers, have got things wrong. Sure Churchill was an empire man, that is why he got so unpopular between the wars, when he resisted efforts to give India even the most limited self-government.
   
   But Churchill had no war aims, save victory. OK, victory was important, but we would not have had victory on Churchill's watch.
   
   He was terrified of D-Day, believing a re-run of the Battle of the Somme was in the offing.
   
   All his life, he was a side-show man. When troops were needed in Normandy, he pleaded for them to stay in Italy.
   
   In 1939-40 he even floated a notion - you could not call it a plan - to attack Germany via the Caucusus! The small matter of crossing Russia didn't seem to daunt him.
   
   Then there was his little known adventure in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1943: this was an attempt to drag Turkey into the war. It was a dismal and humiliating failure.
   
   Unlike the other two leaders, Churchill lacked post-war aims.
   
   Stalin was quite clear: he wanted to take Communism westwards. He got his way.
   
   Roosevelt had clear war aims: one of which was to break down the system of trade on which the British Empire was based. He got his way, though he did not live to see it. (Globalisation started here.)
   
   Churchill? He basked in glory, a romantic to the end. Was he good for Britain, though?
   
   He got it wrong, very wrong on Europe: one of the biggest lost opportunities in British history was waved away by a nation that ended the war under the killer illusion that it was still a great power.

No comments about The Life of Walter Scott: A Critical Biography (Blackwell Critical Biographies, No 6).

5 comments about Richard II (The English Monarchs Series).

1. Richard II has been a controversial figure from his deposition from the English throne in 1399 to our own day. Like his later fifteenth-century namesake Richard III, interpretations of him and of his motives have varied widely, and were dominated for much of the twentieth century both by Shakespeare's play and by the image of the mad autocrat first painted by Anthony Steel in his "Richard II" (1941). Now Professor Nigel Saul has given us what will deservedly be the standard life for at least the next half-century. This work, first published three years ago, forms part of an outstanding series of lives of the English kings, and is every bit the equal of the best of them, from Warren's "Henry II" (1973) to Barlow's "William Rufus" (1983). Saul presents Richard as a man thrust, at the tender age of ten, into an office and a domestic and international situation which he could not fully grasp, and forced to do the impossible: fill the gargantuan shoes of both his grandfather, Edward III, and his father, the outstanding warrior Edward the Black Prince. The uncertainty of Anglo-French relations during this stage of the Hundred Years War, and the expectations of Richard's magnates and subjects - that he would be a military leader and vigorous defender of the English position in France like his predecessors - bedeviled the king during his minority and placed constraints upon his behavior which he found unbearable. Saul examines the entire context of Richard's reign and the forces at work in his world, from Richard's peace overtures to the French (which were opposed by his magnates as insulting to English "national" honor) to his support of unpopular court favorites, and even to the king's religious attitudes (traditional in a time of growing discontent with the Papacy and the Catholic Church). He thus gives us a complete structure to support the fascinating final chapters of the book. It is here, just as in any finely crafted piece of literature, that we see all the strands of Richard's life and character woven together with what, for him, was a terrible finality: his revenge against those, including members of his own family, who had insulted and demeaned him in his youth, his growing paranoia, and his assault on the property rights of his magnates, rights which were a cornerstone of the late medieval English state. The result, as Saul rightly puts it, was a "terrible denouement" in which Richard, showing a tragic lack of judgement (as he had so often done), lost his throne to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. Saul's final view of Richard as psychologically disturbed, but understandably so, is well supported by evidence and is very plausible. The book has no major weaknesses and few minor ones, and will provide a thorough understanding not only of Richard II, but of power and its limitations in late medieval England.



2. Richard II was a fascinating and enigmatic character, whose reign was marked by his being dethroned not once, but essentially twice. This in addition to Richard's being faced with that oddity, a nearly successful popular uprising. Thse two losses of power constitute about as disastrous a pattern as any ruler can produce. What the sources of the turmoil were and why Richard was so spectacularly unsuccessful at dealing with them should make for an absorbing tale. Unfortunately, Nigel Saul is good neither at telling the events of the reign nor in laying out the nature of Richard's character.

   It may be no easy task to build up a character on the basis of the fragmentary and often very dry records left by medieval English society. However, as some fine volumes in this series illustrate, this task can be accomplished with aplomb, even by authors working with even weaker material than Saul has and with a less gripping tale that they might tell. Saul falls into a number of traps. The most blatant of these is his repeated failure to distinguish trivia from significant facts. He also fails to distinguish speculation from well-supported fact and makes little attempt to eschew the former as much as possible. Furthermore, Saul repeatedly presumes detailed knowledge of certain aspects of the individuals and situations under consideration to a quite unreasonable extent for anything purporting to be a book for anyone other than an expert. At other times he belabors matters that need little exposition for anyone with much familiarity with the subject.

   The presumption of knowledge is most annoying when Saul is discussing taxation. Saul never explains what a "fifteenth and tenth" was; though he has Parliament grant it to the King repeatedly in the early going. What is totally lacking in the book is a discussion - and here there is a lot of material available - on what the sources of revenue of the English crown really were, and how they were used.

   Another example of the author's annoying habits is illustrated by the offhand way in which Harry Percy (Hotspur) is introduced which presumes a full and immediate knowledge of who he was. (To make matters worse, the index doesn't even list the real introduction, which is in a footnote.) It is not clear that Hotspur needed to be mentioned when he was, but if he is going to enter the tale, we should be told who he is when he appears, especially since the real Hotspur differed in very significant ways from the picture to be gleaned from Shakespeare.

   And so it goes. Lists of names where some analysis is needed, places visited with no explanation of why it would matter, etc. The book is so badly organized so that it is repetitious without being illuminating. Lengthy disputes with other scholars are undertaken on minor matters, while little care is given to establishing what is and is not known about major matters.

   The general background of a society in transit, with serious demographic dislocation from the Black Death, is not analyzed and not related to Richard's troubles and successes. Only in discussion of religion and Lollardy do we get anything like an analysis of the background. This temporary strength is marred as Saul breaks off for meaningless (since there has been no clear analysis of the roles of the individuals) lists of adherents, and the thinnest of analysis of Richard's beliefs. Much of this latter involves the interpretation of an altar piece in whose design we are given no reason to suppose that Richard himself was involved.

   Even the concluding chapter, which is probably the best of the book, is marred by raising material to buttress arguments which was not covered earlier and by making points quite unsupported by any material that went before. That chapter also quotes Shakespeare, with chunks pulled randomly and out of order from the play, and one can only conclude that Shakespeare, though no historian, had a better grasp of the situation than does Saul.

   This is supposed to be the best biography of Richard II available. It may be - I am no expert - but if so, the field is crying out for a better one. One hopes that it is already sitting on some scholar's desk or in some editor's briefcase. In the meantime, there are many far better books on British medieval history and the character of its kings to absorb the energies of the interested reader.




3. If you are not well-versed in this period of English history, then reading this book could be a struggle at times. It is not the best-organized book I have read; there were several times I had to re-read for 4-5 pages to make sure I was following the narrative properly. Also, the author assumes that the reader knows the subject thoroughly. Do you know the difference between the Great Seal, the Privy Seal and the signet? The difference between scutage and amercements? That the names Duke of Lancaster, Prince John, John of Gaunt and Gaunt all refer to the same person (sometimes several being used on the same page)? The difference of a "grant in fee simple" and a "grant in tail male?" The author assumes you do, for he offers no details. If you are in the dark about this, you will remain utterly confused at times with what appears to be meaningless terminology.

   Also, echoing another reviewer, the author bases a number of assumptions on some rather sparse documentation. He may make an assertion and in the next paragraph observe that there is virtually nothing in the historical record to indicate one way or another what exactly was going on? Is the author then simply guessing at times? This is a little troubling for the reader.

   The narrative can get unnecessarily tangled at time as the author gets bogged down in what seems to me to be minute details. This was a gripping period of English history, a prelude to the War of the Roses, where one witnessed a struggle for power between Parliament and the King, as well the struggle within the royal family itself, a struggle that would erupt more violently two generations later. This story would seem to provide a gripping narrative, but at times the prose is positively leaden. Be warned, the words do not flow gracefully from Saul's pen.

   If you are able to stick with it, you will find this book to quite informative, but I cannot believe that this book could not have been a bit more accessible.




4. I found Nigel Saul's biography on King Richard II to be pretty complete and interesting. It pretty obvious that the author have a pretty good knowledge of his subject and the period he lived in. The book appears to be well researched and while the writing seem bit awkward at times, I enjoyed reading it and for most part, it flowed pretty nicely. The book covers most of the aspects of Richard's reign although I am bit disappointed that it doesn't covered the subject between Richard and his wife, Anne of Bohemia. It supposed to be one of the great love stories of the English crown but it don't get a lot of pages.
   
   The book appears to be written for people with good background on English history. It definitely wasn't written for the popular masses and I agreed with some of the previous reviewers that the author take too much upon himself to believed that everyone knows much as he does on the period at hand. At times the book appears to be overly complicated.
   
   But for those who do have a high level of interest in this period of history, this book proves to be filled with information and facts that the author laid out with considerable skill and insight. He looked at Richard with a fresh perecption and logically followed his strengths and flaws. Comparison made between Richard II and Edward II proves to be interesting.
   
   For correctional purpose, I offered to point out that in 1961, Harold Hutchinson wrote a biography on Richard II titled "Hollow Crown". I thought that was a pretty interesting book as well and well written for novice reader. For some reason, this book completely escaped the author's radar.
   
   However for modern biography, this one on Richard II come highly recommended only if you are well versed in English medieval history.



5. As I picked up Nigel Saul's mammoth "Richard II" (1999, 514-page paperback) I remembered that some have blamed the rule of this troubled monarch for planting the seeds for the War of the Roses (a hundred years later). I thought it exciting to again step into the 14th century's chivalrous pageantry, political mayhem, and late medieval preparation for the age of discovery.
   
   Saul's is a fascinating story of the birth of English appeasement politics. Although the "a word" ("appeasement") is only sparingly used here, this history surprisingly demonstrates Richard II to be the first great appeaser in English kings history. It is shocking how quickly king Richard, when he's allowed to control the government, gives away the farm.
   
   According to Saul, the king is too generous with friends (Burley, de Vere, de la Pole, etc.) and foes (handing over huge tracts of English continental land to France for uncle John of Gaunt to become duke of Aquitaine). Through "Richard II" one sees why Parliament's commons, dukes Gloucester and Arundel, and Londoners were so often frustrated, to the point of royal disposement. (Richard II lost royal governance to them twice!)
   
   This interesting book is too long (thus earning fewer stars). The helpful eight pages of black and white photographs, the 29 pages of appendix and bibliography, and the 18 pages of exhaustive index are to be expected from a Yale University history series. The downside of this book is Saul's reader expectation. He assumes vast reader knowledge. His historical explanation is only a canopy over Richard II information. Also his grammar is not always clear (i.e., see page 116 for a list of royal uncles that seems to include royal friend Michael de la Pole, a syntactic mistake).
   
   This book is a good overview and therefore should be brief (perhaps the author's droning is a cover for story vacancies). It is recommended to everyone familiar with Richard II that has plenty of time for only his highlights.

No comments about Heart of a Queen: Queen Victoria's Romantic Attachments.