Great Tales from English History: The Truth about King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More

by Robert Lacey

Book Overview

With insight, humor and fascinating detail, Lacey brings brilliantly to life the stories that made England -- from Ethelred the Unready to Richard the Lionheart, the Venerable Bede to Piers the Ploughman.

The greatest historians are vivid storytellers, Robert Lacey reminds us, and in Great Tales from English History, he proves his place among them, illuminating in unforgettable detail the characters and events that shaped a nation...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031610910X
• ISBN13: 9780316109109
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Makes history worth reading about

Lacey emphasizes characters' interactions, jealousies, and greed, giving a better understanding of how and why events occurred. What influenced characters' decisions? Chapters are fairly short, not overly complicated. Textbook history was boring in school. This makes it interesting and I did get to learn more about how all of us are all affected by how our world has developed. After reading this, I just had to get Lacey's next two volumes of this series. This is great stuff to find out about.

History made fun

I'm a big history fan, but I can understand why some find it boring. There are bad teachers out there anywhere; for the love of Mike, some people even manage to make biology boring. Well, this may be history as anecdote, but a. the anecdotes are fun, and b. isn't that really what history is, in a way, a succession of anecdotes? It's certainly not a bunch of dates you have to memorize (although knowing the anecdotes makes remembering general dates much easier). This has the bit about Henry II dying from a "surfeit of lampreys" (my favorite phrase in the English language)(no, seriously; sometimes I'll go to McDonald's to order a surfeit of lampreys just to see them roll their eyes and spit in my Big Mac)(I liek spit). It's got Guy Fawkes. It's got much of the dirt on Henry VIII. Even its little essay on Thomas Becket, easy to read and all, manages to speak to the reason why he is so revered without holding him up as a saint, exactly. I'm told there are more English history books out there by this guy but I haven't read them. I imagine they assuage my one criticism about this book: it's a lot of drum and trumpet history and not nearly enough talk about the regular lives of people. Don't get me wrong; there's a bit of it, but those primarily concern the times when the common people got in the way of the leaders, like Piers Plowman or the little match girls. Lacey's book "The Year 1000" is a fantastic read precisely because it's *not* about William the Conqueror or Ethelred Unred. Don't get me wrong, kingly gossip is still fun to read, but I find the lives of commoners and burghers and so on much more interesting (and ultimately more important).

Very entertaining reading

A very good first approach to English history. Summarizes its milestones and adds some notes of colour. The shortness of the stories doesn't allow for in-depth analysis, but the book provides an excellent overview and lots of references for further reading.

Accessible history part 1

I first discovered Robert Lacey as an author from his book 'The Year 1000'. Interesting, accessible, easy to follow, with a good balance of detail and breadth (always a tricky task when writing a popular history), that book was one of my favourites around the turn of the second millennium. I discovered this book after finding the second volume of this set on the shelves of my local library, and have found it equally worthwhile and fun to read. This book focuses upon the period from Britain's prehistoric period up to the Middle Ages (the second volume concentrates on the late Middle Ages to the post-Reformation era in English history) - in royal terms, the times of the pre-Norman Conquest kingdoms and invasions, and the early Plantagenets. In years, this goes from the years around 7000 BC to the late 1300s (Wat Tyler and the Peasants' Revolt). One of the things that I like a lot about this particular history is that the stories are brief and self-contained while being part of the overall flow of the history of England. They make for good bed-time reading (the longest of the stories is barely seven pages long, in easy print and easy, storytelling language). Many of the characters are already familiar figures even to those who aren't Anglophiles - William the Conqueror, Alfred the Great, Boadicea, Thomas Becket and Richard the Lionhearted. Then there will be figures that are lesser known but just as interesting - the Cheddar Man (no, he wasn't made of cheese) from 7000s BC and the Fair Maids of Kent (a story with the foundation of the Order of the Garter). These are tales told in a simplified but memorable manner, and could serve for younger and older readers as a stimulus for further reading and investigation about topics brought up in the text. There are a few maps, royal lineage charts, and woodcut/line art drawings throughout the text. Lacey includes a bibliography for further reading (this contains a good number of website addresses for making further research very easy). There is also an index, which many popular histories forget, but Lacey is to be highly praised for including one here, making looking up particular names, places and events very easy.

Accessible history part 1

I first discovered Robert Lacey as an author from his book 'The Year 1000'. Interesting, accessible, easy to follow, with a good balance of detail and breadth (always a tricky task when writing a popular history), that book was one of my favourites around the turn of the second millennium. I discovered this book after finding the second volume of this set on the shelves of my local library, and have found it equally worthwhile and fun to read. This book focuses upon the period from Britain's prehistoric period up to the Middle Ages (the second volume concentrates on the late Middle Ages to the post-Reformation era in English history) - in royal terms, the times of the pre-Norman Conquest kingdoms and invasions, and the early Plantagenets. In years, this goes from the years around 7000 BC to the late 1300s (Wat Tyler and the Peasants' Revolt). One of the things that I like a lot about this particular history is that the stories are brief and self-contained while being part of the overall flow of the history of England. They make for good bed-time reading (the longest of the stories is barely seven pages long, in easy print and easy, storytelling language). Many of the characters are already familiar figures even to those who aren't Anglophiles - William the Conqueror, Alfred the Great, Boadicea, Thomas Becket and Richard the Lionhearted. Then there will be figures that are lesser known but just as interesting - the Cheddar Man (no, he wasn't made of cheese) from 7000s BC and the Fair Maids of Kent (a story with the foundation of the Order of the Garter). These are tales told in a simplified but memorable manner, and could serve for younger and older readers as a stimulus for further reading and investigation about topics brought up in the text. There are a few maps, royal lineage charts, and woodcut/line art drawings throughout the text. Lacey includes a bibliography for further reading (this contains a good number of website addresses for making further research very easy). There is also an index, which many popular histories forget, but Lacey is to be highly praised for including one here, making looking up particular names, places and events very easy.

Excellent introduction to the history of England

If you're looking for in-depth analysis of English history, look elsewhere. However, if you want to get a grasp of the major figures and events of early English history, and have fun reading it, this is the book for you. The author has an eye for the details of history which tell a great deal about how the people of the time lived, without getting bogged down in dry trivia. He spends some time debunking popular myths, such as King Arthur and Lady Godiva, but the actual history on which the myths were built is far more fascinating. I especially appreciate his acceptance of historical figures as they were, as opposed to the judgemental, politically-correct attitude so many modern historians bring to their work. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants a quick overview of English history.