Product Description

"Weir does a masterful job of leading the layman through the entwined family trees of England's powerful families and the many usurpers to the throne. . . . [She] has perfected the art of bringing history to life."
--Chicago Tribune
Lancaster and York. For much of the fifteenth century, these two families were locked in battle for control of the British throne. Kings were murdered and deposed. Armies marched on London. Old noble names were ruined while rising dynasties seized power and lands. The war between the royal Houses of Lancaster and York, the longest and most complex in British history, profoundly altered the course of the monarchy.
Alison Weir, one of the foremost authorities on the British royal family, brings brilliantly to life both the war itself and the historic figures who fought it on the great stage of England. The Wars of the Roses is history at its very best--swift and compelling, rich in character, pageantry, and drama, and vivid in its re-creation of an astonishing, dangerous, and often grim period of history.
"[A] spellbinding chronicle. . . Weir's dark, glorious pageant restores the personal dimension to an oft-told tale without losing sight of a war that shattered feudalism, paved the way for capitalism and weakened the monarchy."
--Publishers Weekly
"[Weir is] skilled at delineating the many memorable characters of the age. . . . It's a tribute to her skill that she leaves you wanting more."
--The Cleveland Plain Dealer
AN ALTERNATE SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22843 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-25
• Released on: 1996-06-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345404336
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
YA?This book reaffirms Weir's mastery of English history. Like The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The Princes in the Tower (both Ballantine, 1993), this title is jam-packed with information. The narrative begins with a short history of the House of Plantaganet, more specifically the disastrous rule of Richard II, which is seen as sowing the seeds of the conflict, and ends with the Battle of Tewkesbury and the murder of King Henry VI. The author weaves the story of the magnate families involved in the politics and rivalries of the era, and makes it understandable, interesting, and readable. Included are the simplified genealogical tables of the families involved as well as extensive primary- and secondary-source bibliographies. Any student of English history will appreciate the ease with which the period is unveiled and the detailed information on the people and places of England from 1399 to 1500.?Debbie Hyman, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In this prequel to her Princes in the Tower (LJ 1/94), historian Weir presents a well-written, entertaining narrative of the first phase of the War of the Roses. Accepting the Tudor view that the conflict originated with Richard II's deposition, she devotes half of the book to relations between Lancaster and York from 1399 to 1455. The second half deals with the period from the first Battle of St. Albans (1455) to the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471). Weir centers her narrative upon leading figures?Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, Richard of York, Edward IV, the earl of Warwick?and others. Though the text lacks footnotes and the bibliography omits some recent scholarship (e.g., by Rosemary Horrox and P.W. Hammond), Weir uses a variety of printed primary sources and secondary works. Much here will be familiar to scholars, but the work is a stimulating discussion as well as a fine introduction for the general reader.?William B. Robison, Southeastern Louisana Univ., Hammond
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
On one side of the bloody dynastic struggle that plagued England between 1455 and 1487 stood the House of Lancaster, headed by the inept King Henry VI. The opposing team was led by King Henry's cousin, the duke of York, whose lineage gave him a better claim to the throne than his ineffectual relative. This period of conflict between royal cousins is known as the Wars of the Roses (tradition has it that for an emblem the Lancaster side of the family adopted a red rose, the Yorks a white). Weir, author of the perceptive and engaging Princes in the Tower (1993), again presents popular history at its finest in an account of the Wars of the Roses and its complicated antecedents. Weir goes back to the heart of the trouble, the disastrous reign of the childless Richard II, and gives witness to the Lancaster family toppling his administration; she then follows the course of the Lancaster dynasty as wearers of the crown through the reigns of three kings, to find out why and how their York relatives, after decades of sitting in the shadow of the throne they by strict rights of inheritance should have occupied, eventually and successfully evicted the House of Lancaster and ruled as the House of York. No history collection should do without this perfectly focused and beautifully unfolded account. Brad Hooper

Customer Reviews

Clear, readable, and well-narrated
The Wars of the Roses are one of the most confusing periods of English history. From the origins in the rivalries between Edward III's children to the final resolution with the founding of the Tudor dynasty by Henry VII, there are eight kings, including some of the best and worst England has had; and literally scores of major figures and families: the Nevilles, the Percys, the Woodvilles, the Beauforts, the Cliffords, the Bourchiers -- the list is endless.

Making this all comprehensible the first time through is simply impossible. Weir almost manages it, though; her style is very readable and friendly, and exciting without being sensational. Weir begins with a short section describing what England was like in the fifteenth century; then she starts the story proper with Edward III, whose five sons and their families are the central players in the history.

She ends her story in 1471, with the defeat of the Lancastrians and the subsequent murder of Henry VI. She only gives a page or two to the remainder of Edward IV's reign, and to the story of Richard III and the princes in the tower, and Henry VII's ultimate accession in 1485. This is almost certainly because she has covered this ground in another book, "The Princes In The Tower". The omission is understandable but still rather a mistake -- the conflict doesn't end till the Tudors are on the throne (and not even then, really -- there were pretenders for years).

The only other criticism I have is that the genealogy tables at the back are too small to read easily. I tried using a magnifying glass but the reproduction is poor enough that some letters are blurred into unreadability. Even when it's readable, it's more work than it should be; this is a real problem for a book about the Wars of the Roses, where understanding the genealogy is crucial to keeping your bearings.

Overall I can recommend this strongly, just because it'll give you the overall narrative clearly and excitingly, but you'll need another source to cover the period from 1471 to 1485.

Terrific writer, interesting subject - a great read
This is a wonderfully readable history, covering the finalconflict between cousins (the House of Lancaster and the House ofYork, and then the House of York and the House of Tudor) over the crown of England. As the author states in her introduction, the full story begins in 1400 begins with a murder and ends in 1471 with another murder.

Weir writes a history of people who come alive on her pages. The characters history has given her are ambitious, incompetent, promiscuous, indolent, and lustful. The tale history has given her is one of these characters acting outside the law, each for his/her own purposes and, in so doing it is an early story of violent "politics of destruction" in the literal sense. This story changed forever the history of England.

I often judge how good a book is by whether I am moved to read another one by the same author, or on the same subject. I am now reading Weir's book on Elizabeth. If you are interested in a well written history of a pivotal period in English history, I would highly recommend that you give The Wars of the Roses a try.

Don't start with this Alison Weir book
I really enjoy learning about British history - and Alsison Weir does a great job. I did find, however, that The Wars of the Roses was the most complicated of her books that I have read. I believe this is because she almost has too much information and tries to share it all. Additionally, the names of people become very confusing in that people take on the names of their title. For example a man would be the Duke of York, then when he died, his son would be the Duke of York. Weir would say "York..." and it would be tough to know whether or not the switch had happened, and because there may be more than 2 people with this name through out the book, it serves to require a lot of effor to understand who was who, while reading the book. The charts at the back help, but again, it would have been nice to have a little more information to make the story easier to follow. Overall I find Alison Weir to be a great teller of history, but I were a new reader to this, I would start with The Six Wives of Henry VIII.