Reading Still Matters

I recently completed The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor.  I read it as part of my Quarter 2 Historathon reads (tbat's a YouTube thing). Castor's book is all about the life stories of Richard of Bordeaux (Richard II) and Henry of Bolingbroke (Henry the IV).  The two men were cousins, but never close. Richard was brave but no soldier and Henry was the standard of medieval of chivalry.  Conflict was inevitable... well, at least in hindsight.  Buy it on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/4vHbxGQ     In fact,  Richard wasn't a great king and he became increasingly paranoid over time. Near the end, he maintained the throne by keeping the nobles in a state of permanent fear using a number of methods that actually seem pretty modern in terms of their psychological impact. For example, Richard required the lords to provide general statements of guilt that were to be reviewed by a special commission. What if you made a general admission of guilt? How would it be ...

I was recently in the United States and dropped into Barnes & Noble to pick up a book (I am Canadian). Turns out that I grabbed The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire by Tore Skeie. I am not going to lie, I mean I think Vikings are pretty cool, but really I was attracted to the book by the cover and the crazy good title.  A thoughtful package to a book can open covers so to speak, even if a book can't be judged by its cover. Buy it on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/3RNMXpb When I started reading it, I was surprised to learn that Tore Skeie is a Norwegian historian and that the book was translated from the Norwegian language. The Wolf Age (originally published in Norway as Hvitekrist ) is his first major work to be translated into English and it really does have a Scandinavian centered perspective, so it was very cool.  For the most part, books on Norse history I have read have been from the English perspective. The Wolf Ag...

I recently completed Poland: A History by Adam Zamoyski which had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while now. The title should give you a pretty good hint at what this one is about, basically it’s an overview of the history of the Polish people and Polish state from around the tenth century up to the end of the Lech Walesa period following the Soviet collapse.      And for those of you who have been reading Polish history for a while now, this might be a book you have come across before in a different guise. Zamoysky originally published this back in 1987 as The Polish Way , although this is a revised and updated edition which re-evaluates Poland’s past with a "fresh eye." Basically, we have a general extension of the time covered as the book now includes more about post-Soviet developments. So, if you have already read The Polish Way , then be forewarned. I haven’t read The Polish Way, so I am not sure how different it actually is. Buy it on Amazon:  https://amzn...

Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom by Tom Holland is very interesting take on Western Europe during the two centuries surrounding the apocalyptic year 1000.  Basically, Holland takes us through a 200-year period across the various regions of Europe in order to demonstrate that the events of this time period created the society that would ultimately become modern Europe.  For Holland, this was the period when the area that is now Europe became something other than just the shattered remains of the Western Roman Empire.   Buy it on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/4oinnEB The historical narrative pivots around the year 1000 and the pervasive fear of the Antichrist and the Second Coming, and digs in on how these apocalyptic anxieties influenced the actions of rulers, clergy, and peasants alike. Generally, Holland works the history region by region. Treating as separate but connected narratives, the happenings in what would become Italy, Spain, Fran...

Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe is a recent work of history by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry.   The book primarily documents the Carolingian Civil War, which was a bloody conflict among Charlemagne's descendants that fractured the vast empire built by Charlemagne with much blood and treasure. Buy it on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/4vDjvka The story starts earlier with Charlemagne’s immediate predecessors, his grandfather and father, who successfully took power from the Merovingians.   The authors then summarize and provide insights into familial conflicts and power plays that had already started in the time of Charlemagne. Essentially, the signs of civil war were already starting to show by the end of Charlemagne’s reign. We then visit the reign of Louis the Pious who was Charlemagne’s sole surviving son. Has their been a number of heirs, one suspects that outright war between the Franks may have started earlier. Ho...