Customer Reviews

Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth and History

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As a new historic reader, I must say this book has some outstanding forums! It historically demonstrates the events based upon actual records and it shows how the fear of God drives one soul to victory even after her death! While reading, it almost puts you in the court room and on the battlefield witnessing her triump over dark forces of england! Timothy Wilson-smith wrote this book very well and I know any Joan of Arc fan would enjoy it! A must read book! While I don't like to much dry dramatics, this book doesn't really have any. It does give circumstances and stories of important key people such as Charles VII and yet it doesn't dig too deep into their life, but focuses souly on Joan and her quest to free france. It also gives first hand accounts of the men who fought along side of her while giving testimony! I didn't fully understand (but always heard of) her full story until I read this book. I'm not sure if this book is with full details of 'all' accounts of the historic records, but it sure will start you off in learning and understanding a true saint for Christ! As a christian, I don't speak a word of french, but all that serve God is a fellow child of the King!

Good book but some times hard to follow. The book is concerned more about the events around her, before her life, during and after than actually about her. You can easily loose track during the various chapters when different witnesses are testifying.

This book is easy on the eye. It is written in a pleasant style guaranteed to ruffle no feathers. Yet the author has nothing new to say about Joan herself. It's a good repackaging of what is already out there, so while I enjoyed the read, I drew little from it. Perhaps he feels there is nothing new to say, but too many coincidences are taken a face value, too many important questions are left unanswered, even unasked. For example, what was the nature of the relationship between Joan and the Duke of Lorraine and Rene d" Anjou? What was the heresy with which the Church charged her? Why did it take over 500 years for the Vatican to canonize Joan? The author can't even bring himself to opine whether Joan's "visions" were real, imagined or a calculated deception. He has no clues as to whether or not Joan was part of a larger conspiracy. And so on and so on. These topics should not be the sole domain of conspiracy theorists. The only reason they are, is because historians like Wilson-Smith are afraid of ridicule. Well, Mr Wilson-Smith, God gave you a neck, so you might as well stick it out from time to time...