Customer Reviews

Kings of the North

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Percy family's rise from small landholders to virtual kings of the north of England. The book is not only about the Percy's: it is about the period, but with them at the centre. They lived in a tumultous era and they were very much part of it. The author has done a splendid job with his source material and paints a fascinating history of the politics and warfare of the period. The tone of the book is slightly irreverent, which is good, since the protagonists are not always the nicest people.
This book is very much about politics, not so much about culture or life in the middle ages. The only drawback is a lack of maps, which makes much of the activity in the book unclear.

Kings in the North is the best kind of history. It has been extensively researched and is written in a style accessible even to to non-historians. I am a psychologist and I couldn't put it down! It's a must-read for anyone interested in the details of what really happened in early England. Shakespeare and Hollywood have sold us many fictions, but in this book you can find out the facts about Hotspur, Prince Hal and what really happened to William Wallace (Braveheart.)

a very good connection between the percy family and british history, so detailed with perfect details

This was a good, popular, history of Northern England, the Anglo-Scottish wars and their impact on Late Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Britain told through the prism of the Percy family. But the Percys appear and fade from this history with an annoying regularity. Also much of this history is reasoned conjecture...as it necessarily must be since documentation is rather spotty at times. This is not the fault of the author...the records, it would seem, just were not there to access.

All-in-all a good and informative read about an area of British history in which little is in print for the average reader. A recommended read for anyone interested in British history...and, really, who couldn't be interested in British history...such an anodyne to the flood of American history that every press, these days, seems obsessed with.

This is an excellent book that is not only a history of the Percy family, but the best history of northern England in the middle ages that I have come across. In fact, it is one of the best history books I have ever read. The author's style is as readable as any book I have read and keeps the story alive the entire way through.