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Tower: An Epic History of the Tower of London Paperback – October 15, 2013

by Nigel Jones (Author)

30 customer reviews

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A dazzling history of the Tower of London, one of the world's busiest tourist attractions, and the people who populated it

Castle, royal palace, prison, torture chamber, execution site, zoo, mint, home to the crown jewels, armory, record office, observatory, and the most visited tourist attraction in the UK: The Tower of London has been all these things and more. No building in Britain has been more intimately involved in the island's story than this mighty, brooding stronghold in the very heart of the capital, a place which has stood at the epicenter of dramatic, bloody and frequently cruel events for almost a thousand years.

Now historian Nigel Jones sets this dramatic story firmly in the context of national―and international―events. In a gripping account drawn from primary sources and lavishly illustrated with sixteen pages of stunning photographs, he captures the Tower in its many changing moods and its many diverse functions. Here, for the first time, is a thematic portrayal of the Tower of London not just as an ancient structure, but as a living symbol of the nation of Great Britain.

Tower: An Epic History of the Tower of London

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Product Details

Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition (October 15, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250038405
ISBN-13: 978-1250038401
Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1.3 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #726,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1509 in Books > History > Europe > Great Britain > England

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Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars

5 star		44%
4 star		20%
3 star		23%
2 star		10%
1 star		3%

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

Somebody take this man's thesaurus away

By Jonathan A. Turner VINE VOICE on February 7, 2013

Format: Hardcover

There's a great story here. Too bad the author keeps getting in the way.

We start innocuously enough, with a brief chapter on the Tower's construction and first 120-ish years. A straight chronological approach to the subject, you might think. Well, no. Chapter 2, "The Menagerie and the Mint", veers off into two topics that have nothing to do with Chapter 1, Chapter 3, or each other. The main narrative rights itself for a while thereafter, only to founder on the rocks of the Wars of the Roses, where Nigel Jones gets himself thoroughly lost in a welter of Georges, Richards, earls, dukes, battles, betrayals, bishops, archbishops, castles ... Every so often he remembers that he's supposed to be writing about the Tower of London, and rushes back there, but he never stays long.

Some order returns with the Tudors and early Stuarts, but it doesn't last. The latter half of the book is a series of interconnected chapters, organized thematically rather than chronologically, about what Jones clearly regards as the book's raison d'etre: torture, suffering, and death. Finally we return briefly to the timeline, skimming over the last quarter-millennium in a few pages--I suppose because things have been insufficiently lurid of late to keep Jones interested.

That brings us to Tower's second major failing, which is the writing. "Lurid", did I say? By the time of Richard III the prose has gone positively purple. Jones, in his fervor to uphold the traditional portrait of the black-hearted Richard, loses control of his adjectives, his adverbs, and his judgment. Richard's cohorts are "peculiarly nasty". He's a "monster" and a "gangster". He speaks "silkily". (How Jones knows this, I have no idea.) He's "poisonous", "hideous", "unsavoury", "hysterical".Read more ›

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32 of 39 people found the following review helpful

By Edie on February 1, 2013

Format: Hardcover

I was excited to order this book and started it the minute I pulled it from the packaging. And then bit by bit I began finding things that just bothered me. Mr. Jones tends to relate how a person of the time felt and how they said things. It was a minor annoyance at first until I hit the chapter "The Princes, The Protector and The Pretenders". Not only does he goes into more detail about Richard III then needed in order to drive home what a bloodthirsty "little" king he was, he also threw in sentences containing words such as Buckingham "silkily" said, "greasy" Lovell, Catesby and Ratcliffe...ugh... Oh and how Thomas More related that Edward V basically said that he hoped his uncle wouldn't kill him. Where in the history books does THAT statement appear? Only in Thomas More's material found after his death, that was written during the Tudor era. I'm not one of those who blindly believes that Richard had nothing to do with the death of his nephews but no proof has been given that he DID or that he ordered it OR that Henry VII didn't order it. Could Richard have done it? Yes! But don't state it as FACT.

And then the absolute killer for me was this: "Katherine herself, 'beautiful and godly to behold', was dressed in white satin with her dark hair hanging lose down her back..." So he's talking about Katherine of Aragon...who had RED hair. OR possibly golden red. She did NOT have dark hair. SO what else is going to be incorrect if something so well known is incorrect? I have no idea. I stopped reading the book and it goes into my "give away" pile.

All in all this is probably a nice read for someone wanting a REAL broad overview of the Tower and the chance to relate some juicy stories about it...with unnecessary embellishments.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

Entertaining but mistitled

By Erin B. Denniston on April 2, 2013

Format: Hardcover

I bought this book the day I visited the Tower complex for the first time last week. I was so fascinated by the buildings and their history that I wanted to know more. That is NOT what this book is about. This is a history of England that uses the Tower as a kind of linchpin to tell the stories of the times and the people. Which is not a bad device. But I wanted to know more about the structures: their construction, little known facts, how they evolved over time, stories about the builders, etc. It's not that I didn't enjoy the book. But it told the history of England I'm already familiar with and didn't tell me much about what I wanted to know. So before you buy, decide what you're craving to discover and then make a decision whether to purchase THIS book versus another.

Still looking for a good book on the history of the Tower of London complex...

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Good book that is missing some critical information

By t4987sd on February 6, 2013

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Tower: An Epic History of the Tower of London was loaded interesting facts. The only thing missing was MAPS & DIAGRAMS of the Tower. Jones discusses various buildings, wall and courtyards but fails to provide maps and diagrams of the locations. Instead he provides some pretty lame photos that are actually useless. Jones could have made the book much greater with just a view maps and diagrams, an easy remedy.

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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

Tower is an entertaining and informative popular survey of the infamous Tower of London

By C. M Mills on November 29, 2012

Format: Hardcover

Tower is a well written account of The Tower of London. The infamous tower was built during the reign of William the Conqueror over a millenium ago being completed by Edward I. Since that distant day the tower has been the sight of:
a. The Royal Mint were coins of the realm were produced by skilled workers
b. The site of a famous royal menagerie featuring exotic animals such as giraffes, elephants, camels and other exotic creatures brought home by such seadogs as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and others.
c. The Tower is where the Royal jewels are displayed. During the seventeenth century many of the jewels were stolen by the notorious Thomas Blood.
d. The dread final stop on the road to maryrtdom for countless religious persons who went to the scaffold for their beliefs. Among them: Roman Catholics such as Sir Thomas More the author of "Utopia" and Bishop John Fisher who both were against Henry VII's marriage to Anne Boleyn.
e. British queens Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard (both wives of the the evil Henry VIII called the English Stalin by Jones) and the pitiful young Lady Jane Grey who was Queen of England for nine days following the death of Edward VI. The Protestant Jane and her husband both died at the Tower.
f. Jones book is often filled with moving stories of those who lived and died in the Tower of London. One of the most interesting was Sir Walter Raleigh who was beheaded during the reign of the cruel James I. Raleigh had failed to find Eldorado in the Caribbean and was sentenced for treason against the Scottish born king James.
g. A fascinating chapter deals with a sampling of tales about those 37 men and women who were able to escape the Tower.
h.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

A recommended read for visitors to the Tower of London

The Tower of London is surely one of the premier tourist destinations in London, and perhaps the entire world. Read more

Published 6 days ago by Robb Hansen

Not worth the money or your time

For people like me who don't live in England and will probably never visit, I ordered this book so I could learn more about the Tower of London and actually SEE it. Read more

Published 18 days ago by toby

A great history read.

Read the book just before going to London. Got much more out of the visit to the Tower of London after reading this book.

Published 1 month ago by Anne DiSorbo

Excellent Book for Fans of British History

As you can tell by my name, I'm a huge fan of British history. So I've read lots of books on the subject. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Sir Roderick

but it was far too tedious to read even a quarter of the way through

Interesting subject, but it was far too tedious to read even a quarter of the way through. He threw in everything but the kitchen sink.

Published 4 months ago by Lula Torintza

Thank u

Published 5 months ago by ghislaine carasco

This book tells you everything there is to know about the Tower of London. I found it somewhat uneven. There is an endless chronology of English nobility - none of them likeable. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Nemoman

Epic Tower of London

Epic book indeed. Sometimes a tough read. Very informative, Nigel Jones was able to make 1100 years of Tower history readable. Good job.!

Published 8 months ago by LYNN M COVEY

This book is excellent. Exciting and readable, the way a history book should be. Reads like a novel.

Published 11 months ago by WahooMan

The Tower of London, everything you wanted to know

I am in the middle of this book. Begun by William of Normandy who won England in 1066, the tower was begun sometime around that year. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Jacqueline Davidson

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