A tortured man in a tormented land in Lawrence In Arabia

From the week of June 9th, 2014

Mythology plays a strange and complex role in the legacies of history's legendary figures. Heroes and villains both find themselves subjected to its whimsical powers, the former elevated out of the mists of obscurity to shine like the essence of virtue, an example to all those who follow, and the latter shrouded in the darkness of devilry, their cruel deeds used to assure present-day citizens that they aren't so barbaric. Without mythology to generationally resurrect the stories of the past, we might never have heard of such figures, let alone learned their lessons. And yet, this historical airbrushing is so deeply rooted in the cultural prejudices that have shaped and carried them that, often, very little of the actual person is left for us to study. Fortunately, for Mr. Anderson, his subject has only suffered a century of such treatment. The rest of the mythological sediment the author himself expertly scrapes away to reveal a character of endless fascination.

Born into less than reputable circumstances, at least by the measure of his Victorian era, T. E. Lawrence rose from the obscurity of a difficult childhood to become arguably the most famous figure of World War I. An archaeologist with a particular fondness for the Arab world, he was initially tapped by the British Government to survey the Middle East which became a battleground in the Great War when the Ottoman Empire refused to side with the Entente powers. Keen to protect its colonial interests in the region, not to mention the vital oil reserves necessary to fuel their ships, Britain needed to understand not only the strategic situation in the region but the cultural one as well.

Lawrence might have remained a historical footnote, nothing more than a consultant on Arabic affairs, were it not for Britain's shambolic defeat at Gallipoli, a foolish engagement that not only swept into the sea the lives of thousands of young men from both Commonwealth and Turkey, but robbed Britain of any territorial advantage. Forced to rely on key figures in the Arab world, Britain turned to Lawrence to liaison with the region's tribal leaders. Not only would Lawrence come to cherish these relationships, they would serve to highlight the faithlessness of his own imperialistic government, truths that would permanently change his view of the western world. Lawrence would persist in his task, however. For he believed in an Arab world for the Arabs. And to achieve that, the ottomans would have to be defeated, the doing of which would make him a legend of history.

A superlative work of non-fiction, Lawrence in Arabia is a thorough, spellbinding account of the man, the myth and the world that spawned him. Scott Anderson, an author and journalist, exhibits, here, prose of the first order that not only drills down into Lawrence and the lives of the regional figures who encountered him, but also more-than-capably withdraws to a more global remove to discuss the political and militaristic maneuverings of the involved powers. His descriptions of Lawrence's labors are so wonderfully enmeshed into the overarching narrative of imperialistic exploitation and notions of smug, European superiority that the reader, made breathless by western perfidy, looks on in wonder at an unfolding tragedy of the first order, horrific events that, though they occurred a hundred years ago, nonetheless maintain sad echoes of the present. That the author so ably and effortlessly evokes such comparisons is a credit to his grasp of the subject.

There are actors here, other than Lawrence himself, that garner attention. William Yale, the prospector for Standard oil; Faisal Ibn Hussein, a warlord and Lawrence's primary ally; and Mark Sykes, an infamous British noble and diplomat whose corrosive whimsy wound up destroying Arab faith in the west. Each man, in his own right, is a creature of fascination and complexity. And yet, none hold a candle to Lawrence whose problematic-unto-abusive childhood drove him to lengths of ascetic self-denial that verged on the fanatical. His capacity to endure suffering is as breathtaking as his transformation from creature of self-contained interests and passions into an individual possessed of both the arrogance and the will to believe that his view of what was just could be imposed upon the western world. That he failed is not surprising. But that he thought he might succeed says more about the man than all his trials combined.

It is impossible to read such books without being enriched by them, not only in the events themselves but in how they characterize the broader tides of history. There's a palpable sense of tragedy that hangs over this work, a perpetual sense that human civilization, for all its brilliant advancements, is heart-breakingly prone to collective acts of senseless violence. From the indescribable idiocy of the Great War itself, down through all the self-interested decisions spawned by it, we come to understand some measure of the cultural disdain and suspicion the Middle East has for the West. It is there, for all to see, in the actions of our fathers and our forefathers, what we are capable of doing so long as our interests appear to demand it. Until we break that habit, until we establish, for all time, the notion that there are simply actions too manipulative, too duplicitous, too heinous, to carry out for the sake of necessity, we will just repeat these mistakes over and over. This is the lesson of the Great War, or it ought to be.

Splendid work. First-rate biographical history... (5/5 Stars)

Charlemagne brings the giant of European history lyrically to life

From The Week of April 1, 2013

For as long as humanity has been capable of passing down its history, it has revered legends, figures of time-shrouded myth whose deeds are as grand as their appetites. All of our hearts swell at the prospect of conquest, whatever shape it takes, but these singular men and women seized that desire and stamped it with such force into the metal of our history that their immortality is virtually assured. Perhaps we would do well to forget them. Perhaps, if we were unaware of how brightly their stars burned, some among us would not be driven by the need to eclipse them, regardless of the destruction such would sew. But we'd have as much luck wishing away the sun as erasing our giants. For even in death, they have but to extend their hands and we find ourselves being welcomed into their destinies. This truth is exquisitely explored in Richard Winston's engaging biography.

The son of kings and the forger of an empire, Charlemagne is one of the foremost figures of our age. An illiterate man with a passion for knowledge, he was a creature of contradictions, of enlightenment and devastation, who rallied the men of his far flung province of the fallen Roman Empire and, over 47 years of rule, created a new imperium upon the ashes of the old. The conquerer of Europe, he caused popes to bow to his will and to craft crowns so that he might place them on his brow, acts motivated by glory, surely, but also from a desire to restore the order of what had been centuries lost in the death of old Rome. That he was successful where others had failed speaks to luck, but also to a once-in-a-generation will to leave behind a world better than the one he had found.

Charlemagne fought the Saxons and the Lombards, the Saracens and the Bavarians, but war was not his legacy. That was rooted in the idea of a united Europe, a continent that could set aside its disagreements and work in concert towards a common goal. Moreover, it was invested into the scriptoria he created, places of learning that could restore at least some of the wisdom of the fallen ancients and bestow upon the subsequent generations the capacity to build towards a world not consumed by war, but progress. These were mighty goals Charlemagne worked towards during his long reign, but fate prevented them from coming to fruition as he'd hoped. For with the passing of his eldest sons, men in whom he'd rested his hopes for a continuation of his dreams, his empire fall to Louis, King of the Franks, a pious but unwise man whose squandering of Charlemagne's efforts plunged the continent into centuries of intellectual darkness.

This is the tale Mr. Winston tells in Charlemagne, a lyrical account of the life and times of the most powerful European figure to emerge from the ruins of Rome. Drawing from Einhard's contemporary account of the emperor's life, as well as what other sources remain from the eighth century, the author paints an irresistible portrait of a singular mind, one as shaped by conquest as it was by metaphysics. Though little remains of Charlemagne's youth, and though it is difficult to corroborate the exact nature of his various deeds, a pattern of behavior emerges across the whole of the man's life, one that speaks to a complex nature that would be as well-suited to the cut and thrust of our century as it was to the tribalism of his own. From the manner in which he treated his wives to the esteem with which he held knowledge, we are made witnesses to the man more than we are the warrior, the spirit more than the deeds, a reality which is sure to frustrate those interested in military history but that pleases those others who find themselves fascinated by the minds of giants.

Charlemagne, for all its delightful prose, is a largely sympathetic account of the founder of the Holy Roman Empire. Mr. Winston is far harsher on the emperor's contemporaries than he is on Charlemagne himself. Perhaps Charles the Great was a man above all others, an unyielding spire of morality lashed by a seething sea of corrupted souls, but this seems far too simplistic given what we know of humanity which is much more liable to produce individuals of gray morality than of purely white and black. The only spot of criticism Mr. Winston levels at Charlemagne is the mercilessness with which he treats the Saxons who, time and time again, rise in rebellion against him, but even this seems muted compared to his paeans to Charlemagne's successes.

Notwithstanding its vagaries and its sympathies, Charlemagne is a vivid and lively document that teaches us as much about the man as it does about fate. For the readers of this chronicle will not be able to walk away unaffected by Mr. Winston's conclusion that, had Charlemagne's eldest sons lived, the subsequent 13 centuries of history would have unfolded quite differently. In peace, the schools Charlemagne founded would have had time to build on their learning, to spur on the intellectual flowering that only occurred centuries later. Instead, Louis' unsuitableness caused many of Charlemagne's reforms to wither on the vine, a tragic fact that caused Europe to devolve back into the post-Roman gloom that had already consumed it for 400 years.

Imagine a world without the Middle Ages, without irreason and theocracy. Imagine a Renaissance that began five centuries earlier in Charlemagne's Europe rather than Italy's city states. Imagine if industrialism came to Europe in the 13th century, not the 18th. We would today be among the stars.

Well worth the read, as much for the dream as for the man... (4/5 Stars)

Life of Peter of Morrone detailed in The Pope Who Quit

From The Week of January 21, 2013
Life is a contest between what we want of the world and what the world wants of us. Every decision we make, every interaction we have, is in some way marked by this fundamental clash that can resolve itself in either harmony or discord, unity or chaos. Our will against the world's need, our stubbornness against the world's relentlessness... This, more than any other conflict, is the battle of existence. How can this war be managed? For it must be controlled in some way. To oppose outright is to be worn down, but to yield completely is to be subsumed. There must be a balance, found somewhere in the middle, a balance that only wisdom can strike. This is a lesson few of us learn before we pay a terrible price. Mr. Sweeney exemplifies in his concise and intriguing chronicle.

Forgotten by those not steeped in Catholic history, Pope Celestine V was an unusual creature. Known as Peter of Morrone prior to his elevation to catholicism's highest earthly seat, he was a thirteenth-century hermit who devoted his life to the contemplation of and harmony with the divine. He undertook this journey through the denial of all of life's pleasures, rejecting the comforts of hearth and home, of wife and family, even of sex and fine food. For it seemed to him that wisdom could only flow from the singular contemplation of god.

History might well have never recorded the asceticism of Peter of Morrone. For this was an age of poor record-keeping. In fact, much of his life remains shadowed in mystery and hearsay. However, it is known that, at a time of profound moral crisis for the catholic church, a movement began from within the faith to elevate to the papacy a man who would put morality above political reality, a man of such goodness that he would battle corruption instead of accede to it. It did not take long for Peter of Morrone's name to be put forward for such a post. And, with his candidacy backed by a powerful king, who saw in peter a man he could manipulate, Peter of Morrone was made Celestine V, for a little while at least. For no sooner had the new pope understood the task he'd accepted, the poisons and temptations that surrounded him, then he rejected them, sensationally quitting the papacy to return to the life of a solitary seeker and leaving catholicism to lurch forward into the dark centuries to follow.

The Pope Who Quit is an entertaining examination of a most peculiar event. There are few souls who possess the fortitude and the humility to accept, and the courage to reject, nearly absolute power. And so, when we encounter one such, there is cause to pause our journey for a time and consider him, understand him, and weigh the truths for which he stood. Mr. Sweeney expeditiously assembles the facts about Peter of Morrone that have survived the centuries, painting a portrait of a man whose goodness was unquestioned but whose talents were unsuited to the hornet's nest of temporal politics into which he was plunged. He was a stoic, a man who rejected the here and now for the otherworldly eternal, a fact which doomed his stint as pope before it even began.

Mr. Sweeney concerns himself, here, with the question of whether or Celestine V was wise or foolish, whether he left his post because he fully understood his unsuitableness or if he was brushed aside by a profane world that had realized his thoughts were far too much of the sacred to be practical. To me, this is not the most pertinent question raised by a consideration of Peter of Morrone. Rather, he ought to ask us to contemplate just how much a man can live in a world of the now when his heart and mind are set on what's next. Can someone who has more care for god than for himself truly ever understand the world into which he's been born? Surely, it holds as many mysteries as god does. And if those mysteries are not studied, grappled with, then how can one ever successfully live with others?

There can be no doubt that, today, Peter of Morrone would be an antisocial misfit, a man whose contemplation of the divine came at the cost of denying to a needful world the light of his goodness. And if that is not an act of supreme selfishness, I cannot imagine what is. It is fine to be selfish in this way; we are all free to act as we choose. But to attempt to festoon it with the trappings of morality seems, at the very least, dubious.

A solid chronicle of an interesting man and an even more interesting time... (3/5 Stars)

Tudor England's generation gap comes to life in Thomas Penn's Winter King

From The Week of December 3, 2012
Death and renewal, life's fundamental opposing forces, define our world. They breathe change into our seasons and put fuel into the earth. They provide food for organisms and ensure evolutions steady march. No force is beyond their authority, not even the stars that make life possible. But inside these universal systems, death and renewal shape our lives just as profoundly. They define our relationships, our jobs, and especially our goals, demanding that we move through our limited existence with alacrity and desperation, propelled by the knowledge that everything we are and everything we love is not only finite but fleeting. Even if we cannot hear this driving drumbeat of life, it guides our actions which, in turn, shape our kingdoms, our empires, even our nations. This is a truth well-captured by Mr. Penn's engaging biography of the sunset of the life of Henry VII and the sunrise of his sun, the infamous Henry VIII.

Uncounted barrels of ink have been spilled in an attempt to illustrate the lives and times of the House of Tudor, a brief but influential dynasty that, in the sixteenth century, uplifted England from a political also-rand to a mercantile powerhouse to rival Europe's richest empires. Much of this attention has been understandably taken up by Henry VIII, and his numerous wives, and his daughter, Elizabeth I, who governed her country more wisely than most of its kings. One created a religion; the other created an empire. Together, they were salacious and noble, headstrong and ruthless. But though this attention is warranted, it excludes perhaps the most fascinating Tudor ruler, the man who set the stage for the men and women who followed him.

As firm as he was cheap, as wise as he was suspicious, Henry VII spent his life uniting a fractured crown. Forcing his way to power in the wake of the War of the Roses, a merciless conflict that pitted two of England's most powerful families against one another in a devastating war, he devoted decades of his life to improving England's fiscal standing, linking its fortunes to Europe's most powerful banners. In these maneuvers, he was largely successful, partly thanks to his willingness to use any tactic, no matter how underhanded, to achieve his ends. But such a zealous pursuit of wealth and power with which to pass on to ones heirs must leave its marks, not only on the man but the nation as well, and Henry VII was no exception. For as he lay dying, as his promising son stood ready to inherit all that he had wrought, he was powerless to check the cronies and the influencers, the strongmen and the schemers who he'd used to elevate England and who he'd once played so well. And so, though his son would inherit arguably the richest kingdom in Europe, he would also inherit a security state with a keenly self-interested apparatus, one both willing to manipulate its king and be bound by him, a dangerous precedent that served the younger henry not nearly as well as it did his wiser father.

Winter King is a potent and powerful biography of a transformative period in world history. Mr. Penn invites us back to the dawn of the British Empire, a time in which england lay battered and broken by feuds empowered by greed and self-entitlement, an England that no one could have imagined becoming the defining power of the next 500 years. Here, the author winningly illustrates the lives of the two men who did the most to reshape that country's destiny, setting it upon the path of fame and infamy, fortune and conquest. He captures the fundamental differences between the calculating father and the headstrong son, the shrewd king in his final years and the ambitious prince in his roaring youth, leaving no doubt in the minds of his readers that these men, and the events they weathered, loomed over the generations that followed them. Loves and marriages, schemes and tourneys, assassinations and betrayals are all covered here, detailed in a tome inescapably defined by the cruel but inevitable tides of life.

This is not a perfect history. Mr. Penn disappointingly ignores the first half of Henry VII's life, summing it up in a few pages that gloss over the period's most shattering conflict. This is likely a stylistic choice. For throughout most of the work, the author juxtaposes father and son, their duties, their attitudes, their faiths and their friends. He could hardly adhere to this theme if he covered the time before the younger Henry's birth. Nonetheless, a significant degree of context is lost in this choice, context that might well have aided the reader in understanding the zealously frugal elder henry. As it is, we are introduced to him as an older man, one who has already been forged by the crucible of his time.

Notwithstanding its compromises, Winter King is as readable as it is informative. Too much has already been said of the Tudors. And yet, this is less of an homage than it is an acknowledgement of an exceptional man largely overshadowed by the controversial deeds of his dashing son. In this, it is well worth devouring. (4/5 Stars)

Countess Dracula by Tony Thorne

From The Week of September 17, 2012 cruelty is a force as puzzling as it is pernicious. Capable of ruining lives and cultures with equal ease, it has engulfed entire centuries in blood and war, its ugly urges spelled out in scars that persist to this day. But while its existence is undeniable, its origins are less clear. For humanity is a species built on altruism, on the singular notion that one act of kindness will be returned with interest. It is this very system of positive reciprocity that has built our civilization. This too is undeniable. Where, then, is there room for cruelty in this equation? It seems antithetical to the very ideas that have elevated humanity out of the muck of ignorance. Whatever its origins, its power is tragically clear, a truth demonstrated in Mr. Thorne's biography of one of history's most gruesome figures.

A woman now hopelessly sheathed in legend, Elizabeth Bathory has become a titillating symbol of cruelty. A 16th-century daughter of one of Hungary's most powerful noble families, she has had ascribed to her, by various, contemporary sources, unimaginable acts of brutality which she was said to have salaciously inflicted upon her own female servants. Having reputedly cultivated a small circle of cronish confidantes to execute her fiendish will, she subjected these helpless girls to boiling baths and sadistic floggings which were said to have filled her halls with blood and death. So legendary was she that her cruelties inspired the myth of the heartless mistress bathing in the blood of virgins in order to recapture the beauty of her spent youth.

But who was Elizabeth Bathory? And just how cruel has history been to her? To answer this question, Mr. Thorne, a cultural historian, delves into the histories of both the Countess and the region that birthed her to unearth a handful of tantalizing clues about this most controversial creature. He discovers that, while the Countess was by no means an angel, her deeds were only remarkable for having been authored by a woman. Bathory was a product of a dark, warlike period in European history, one that produced many masculine atrocities. When these crimes are committed by men, Mr. Thorne argues, they are accepted as the deeds of a man shaped by his time. But when a woman wields a knife dripping in innocent blood, then these are not crimes but unforgivable sins that cannot be tolerated.

Charting the political forces that animated Bathory's world, Mr. Thorne makes the convincing case that the Countess' crimes were inflated by men who had every reason to discredit her. For proof, he points to Bathory's perilous position. For while she was undoubtedly one of her realm's most powerful figures, she was a widow with vast estates and near-endless wealth, both of which were coveted by her family and her rivals. With enemies lurking in every corner, waiting only for a weakness upon which to pounce, her downfall was as certain as sunrise. And so, when the abused bodies of dead servants were discovered on her land, and this evidence married to the compelling testimony of a loyal priest who had previously complained about rumors of ill-treatment from Bathory's castle, the means of her demise was assured. She would be devoured by the wolves she could no longer keep at bay.

Though Countess Dracula is at times dry, burdened by a blur of deeds and families that have long-since been pulled down into the depths of history, it is simultaneously a tempered and scholarly reconstruction of the life of a woman of her time. For Mr. Thorne is correct to contend that, if we but thought of Bathory as a man, these awful deeds would be contextualized in the broader life of a tyrant. Any of a hundred men have done no worse than Elizabeth Bathory, but these cruelties are viewed through a more adoring lens. In the Countess' case, her gender makes her unusual, allowing it to play into Christian preconceptions of sinfulness that have helped propel her out of reality and into nightmare. Bathory was undoubtedly brutal, but she is also a reminder that cruelty does not stand alone. It has causes. And if we are willing to recognize this for Tamerlane, then we must also do so for the Countess.

A sober but rewarding analysis of a difficult subject. Mr. Thorne does well with what he has. (3/5 Stars)

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

From The Week of January 16, 2011

For most of us, our world is all we know. Its here and its now envelop us, creating an ever-present and essentially constant cocoon that acts upon us as much as we act upon it. It is a world of coffee shops and restaurants, of universities and ideas, of stadiums and parks. It is a world whose biases and realities we cannot shake. But what if we could? What if, through time travel, we could venture to a past era, to be immersed in the rules and the customs of a time different from our own? Would we find it barbaric? Would we find honor in it? Would we adjust and assimilate? Just how strongly does our environment influence us? Mr. Mortimer has never traveled through time, as far as we know, but his exhaustive research has produced an entertaining primer to what it might be like to journey into a different world, governed by totally different laws, and survive on hostile shores.

As a result of its preponderance of heroes and villains, wars and plagues, extremism and chaos, discussion of the 14th century has generally focused on the big events of that apocalyptic time. Consequently, we know much about the rulers, priests and nobles whose battles, pontifications and schemes characterized the strife. But this is a great man's view of history, one that, with its sweeping assessments of the period, fails to capture what life was like for the everyday souls who inhabited this tumultuous world. It skips over its superstitions, its customs and its occupations which, altogether, weave the fabric of a society.

In The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England Mr. Mortimer sloughs off the legendary figures chronicled to death by countless historians and, grasping us by the hand, transports us to 14th century England where he walks us down the village streets, through the ubiquitous forests and into the boisterous taverns, all in an attempt to suffuse us with the everyday notions of a world now extinct. The food, the laws, the literature, the fashion and the pastimes are all thoroughly explored, overlooking no detail too grotesque or too bizarre in an effort to explain what the passage of 600 years has made so foreign. What results is an amusing portrait of a brutal world, one in which life is as cheap as it is short, where its pleasures are as fleeting as its justice, and where most people don't have the time or the energy to be learned.

While it's clear that our romanticism has glossed over much of the dangers and torments of 14th century England, Mr. Mortimer succeeds, with his painful clarity, to yet make this perilous time appealing. No matter how the world changes, there are some constants to the human experience, customs that arise from deep-seated desires coded into our cells. Amidst the death and the destruction, the suspicion and the xenophobia, there lie acts of charity and togetherness, kindness and brotherhood, upon which the scaffolding of a freer, more enlightened world can be built.

Full of impishness and charm, Mr. Mortimer entertains and educates in equal measure. For as much as this piece plays up the sensationalist elements of the 14th century, it delves into the hearts and minds of those who lived in and shaped this tempestuous century. Memorable if unspectacular work. (3/5 Stars)

Armies Of Heaven by Jay Rubenstein

From The Week of January 16, 2011

Though our religions generally deserve credit for demanding that their adherents follow their charitable instincts and cleave to their moral codes, these benefits are drowned by the oceans of blood that have been spilled over both their gods and their forced conversions. Throughout history, we repeatedly witness these faiths, born out of injustice and despair, coalesce around a central figure whose noble example is a shining beacon of hope in the darkness of a corrupted world. But while some are inspired to live better lives, others are invariably inspired to harness the immense powers unleashed by these saviors, powers which are eventually codified into authoritarian institutions bent upon the preservation of their influence and their gravitas, not the betterment of the people they purport to serve. It is through this corrosive process that a faith like Christianity, animated by the notion of noble self-sacrifice, becomes the banner around which murderers and madmen rally, eager for a taste of God's glory. This piece from Mr. Rubenstein is surely one of the west's most vivid examples of this hypocrisy in motion. It won't soon be forgotten.

Though later centuries would make convincing claims to be called the most destructive in human history, the hundred years, from 1000 to 1099 AD ended in spectacular destruction. It harbored the first of a series of savage, existential conflicts between east and west that would eventually be christened the Crusades by the Christians who initiated them. Brought about by the ascension of Islamic power in the east and the waning of the Byzantine bulwark that had, for the most part, kept Muslims from European shores, western Christians, plagued by a fractured church and a disunited continent, were, in 1095, rallied, by Pope Urban II, around the notion of the liberation of Jerusalem from the Saracens that had rested her from their rightful ownership.

In answer to Urban II's call, an army of nobles and peasants, sinners and innocents, was formed in France. For this was a force willing to take in anyone who had but a single desire, to take the cross upon their breast and, with Christ in their hearts, journey to distant Jerusalem and evict the filthy turks from the most holiest city. A mighty goal, but to achieve it this army, composed of as many preachers and monks as warriors and strategists, would have to sail treacherous seas, navigate the corruption of Byzantium, stave off the horrors of starvation and dissolution, and conquer vast territories before they could even reach Jerusalem. A long and bloody road filled with betrayals and bloodshed, hardship and heresy, and a price that may well be ruined in the taking.

From the Council of Clermont to the massacre at Jerusalem, Mr. Rubenstein, a historian of the medieval world, has, in Armies of Heaven vividly reconstructed the politics and the realities of both the 11th century and the apocalyptic conflict that ravaged it. Couching the First Crusade in the context of End Times, Mr. Rubenstein chronicles the earnest belief among Christians that the world was coming to an end and that their taking of Jerusalem held a prominent place in that eschatology. In this, the author expands our understanding of the conflict's beginnings even while, with revolting detail, he recounts the perfidy of the crusading army's leaders, the insanity of its preachers and the savagery of its warriors. These scenes of horror will not only leave a mark; they leave no doubt as to the extent to which ideology, particularly spiritual beliefs, entangles humans in knots of ultimately murderous logic. There is nothing here of Christ, at least as he comes down to us in the 21st century.

Powerful and informative... Mr. Rubenstein's work possesses the customary dryness of most scholarly histories. However, it is also animated by the undeniable nihilism of the period and the savagery of the quest to take Jerusalem. Both have the power to leave the reader gaping with dismay. An eye opener and, thus, neither for the faint of heart nor the blind of faith. (4/5 Stars)

The Copper Sign by Katia Fox

From The Week of January 09, 2011

Though it is a genre of wide-ranging tastes and styles, historical fiction has two fundamental purposes: to open windows upon the past and to invite us to imagine how we might have fit into these times so different from our own. These are powerful enticements, seductions that speak to us of eras come and gone: their glory, their nobility, and their difficulty. They are stories capable of inspiring us, igniting passions for worlds lost to us by the shrouds of centuries. It is unfortunate, then, that this laborious effort from Ms. Fox mostly fails to deliver on either promise.

In the century following the fall of Anglo-Saxon England, a civilization largely buried by William the Conquerer and his Norman knights at the Battle of Hastings, life is hard for those who call themselves English. Not only are their customs overturned, their laws changed, their lords slain, they also find themselves bowing to a line of foreign kings who ended their way of life and imposed upon them continental conventions of tangled feuds and dubious morality. This is the thorny and troubled Plantagenet England through which Eleanor, our heroine, must navigate.

The product of a youthful and indiscreet dalliance between a French lord and an ambitious Englishwoman, Ellen is doubly cursed. Not only is she the object of her mother's spite -- the woman blames her pregnancy, and by extension Ellen, for ruining her chances at a comfortable, upperclass life --, she is a commoner with a boy's ambitions trapped in a woman's body. She does not want to succumb to a life of marriage and childbearing -- the destiny of all women of her era. She wants to throw off her meager, limited life, become a smith and make armor and swords for the great lords that rule her land.

Until she catches her mother cheating on her adoptive father with a local knight, hers is nothing more than a childish dream. But when her discovery forces her to flee her village, pursued by the knight's lethal threats, she inadvertently stumbles into a lie that will transform all her fanciful notions into reality. If she masquerades as a boy, she can not only earn an apprenticeship with a smith, she can have the life she dreamed of, traveling the known lands, her talented hands laboring for the highest kings. This is Ellen's adventure, its highs and its lows, its triumphs and its betrayals, its loves and its discord.

Though its heroine is, for the most part, a subversive pleasure, The Copper Sign is, in virtually every other respect, a disaster. Its bloated plot consumes 640-odd pages, showing no signs of having ever graced an editor's desk. For not only is the tale twice as long as necessary, Ms. Fox's characters are a confused, inconsistent muddle, their attitudes and ethics changing as the story's plot and her whimsey require. Not only is Ellen's desire to be a boy abandoned less than a quarter of the way through this dense morass, nonsensical feuds, irrational master smiths and conveniently timed illnesses are all summoned by the author and hurled at her heroine in the vain hope that something sticks. Some of this would be forgivable if the novel wasn't held together by Ms. Fox's stupefying lordly antagonist, an accretion of villainous cliches that serve no other purpose than to make Ellen's life miserable and to shove the tale towards its quiet conclusion.

It brings me no pleasure to condemn this work. Clearly, Ms. Fox went to great pains to learn and pass on to her readers the lessons of the forge and the realities of 12th century England, but she appears to have spent much more time researching than she did crafting a plot in which to embed this knowledge. Startling work in desperate need of another draft. (1/5 Stars)

A Needle In The Right Hand Of God by R.howard Bloch

From The Week of February 06, 2011

The Bayeux Tapestry is an exceptional piece of history. Likely commissioned by members of William The Conquerer's family, it is a visual retelling of the Norman Conquest of England, encapsulated and transferred to a 224 foot length of cloth that has survived for more than 900 years. Stop and consider that for a moment. Fires, religious wars, natural disasters, lootings, political upheavals, the Nazis... It has endured all to remain with us, an invaluable resource for our understanding of a medieval world so often clouded by the mists of time.

Mr. Bloch, here, not only recounts the Tapestry's long history, he details the ways and means of its creation by reconstructing the labors of countless women to embroider colored yarn on a linen backdrop. Every image, from the grandest battles to the simplest of letters was the result of incalculable hours of necessarily errorless stitching. But while its making and its adventures fascinate, Mr. Bloch is at his best, here, filling in the events depicted by its myriad scenes. Being an account of the Conquest from the viewpoint of its victors, the reader requires a historian to provide both context and balance to a biased tale. And while Mr. Bloch's account is more pro-Norman than the version posited by Harriet Harvey Wood, it is just as edifying.

It's such a shame that the piecing together of our history has been reduced to the interpretation of wall hangings, yet, there's something glorious about such necessities. For while we pick it apart for nuance, we're forced to acknowledge that all history, all understanding, is transient, that who we are and what we achieve will be retained, forgotten, remembered and forgotten again as we and our descendants endure the rapids of the future. There's nothing especially revelatory about Mr. Bloch's work here, but he certainly does justice to a worthy subject. (3/5 Stars)

1215 by Danny Danziger and John Gillingham

From The Week of January 09, 2011

It may be that, eventually, all roads lead to Rome. For those of us in the West, that great civilization was, prior to the Renaissance, the last time the average citizen had access to culture, education, and something approaching human rights. But if this axiom is true of our culture, then a similar axiom must apply to our laws, that all roads of inquiry eventually return to Magna Carta. This great document, which came about as a result of the foolishness and profligacy of king John, not only bound the British king to the laws of the land, it enshrined into law and into the consciousness of the people the rights of individuals to stand up to the tyranny of the state. As such, it is considered to be a formative statement of the freedoms that all Westerners now enjoy.

Though 1215 is primarily Mr. Danziger's and Mr. Gillingham's delightful account of the lead-up to the signing of Magna Carta, it also does justice to king John's folly, the Plantagenet squabbles which caused the British throne to fall to him, and the wider historical backdrop of 13th century England. With pace and precision, they describe everything from how the document was written to the sociopolitical conditions which brought about its signing. In the process, the authors do not fail to inject the sense of awe that accompanies witnessing a surviving copy of the fairly plain document, two of which are housed at the British Library. There is so much detail here, all of which is satisfyingly packed into 300 engrossing pages.

This is a must-read for any fan of history. There's not a boring moment in the lot and that's an achievement indeed for a book which concerns itself with a time now so enshrouded in history that writer's ink came from the acid created when a wasp stings a tree. To bring alive such a time is a wonderful achievement. (5/5 Stars)

The Battle Of Hastings by Harriet Harvey Wood

From The Week of October 24, 2010

There can be no doubt that Ms. Wood has a soft spot for the Anglo-Saxons who ruled England prior to the Norman Conquest. She makes little bones of her admiration for king Harold Godwinson of England, arguing that William the Conquerer's claim to the English throne was avarice dressed up in the guise of an oath Harold may or may not have given William prior to his being crowned king. But regardless of what one may think of Ms. Wood's sympathies, this much is clear. William's victory at the Battle of Hastings entirely transformed the course of history and changed our world forever.

Upon the death of Edward the Confessor in 1065, Harold, the dead king's brother in law, succeeded him and, in doing so, became the last Anglo-Saxon to sit the English throne. William the Conquerer, Duke of Normandy, upon hearing that Harold had made himself king, planned an invasion of England to crown himself king, arguing that Harold, after a shipwreck in which William came to Harold's aid, had sworn, upon Edward's death, to fight for William's claim to the throne. Considering this then an oath broken, William sailed to Britain, landed an army there and prepared to give battle. It was an ambitious quest, for Harold had the men and the loyalty of the country in his favor. But Harold was at one major disadvantage. While William's troops were rested, Harold had, not three weeks earlier, thrown out of England the last Viking army ever to threaten her shores. Remembered now as the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold suffered many losses and burned up much of his supplies in the forced march to reach Hastings where, on October 14th, 1066, he and William fought that changed Europe forever.

The Anglo-Saxon kings never had claims on territorial Europe. They were British men. But when William the Conquerer defeated Harold at Hastings and crowned himself king of England, he founded a line of English kings who had legitimate claims on French territories. Had the Anglo-Saxons continued to rule England, there would have never been the Hundred Years War. There never would have been a Henry II. There might never have been an apostasy of Henry VIII! This one battle, which very nearly went against William, sowed so many seeds of destiny that no one can account for all of them.

The history of this battle, its belligerents, its outcome, and its consequences are all chronicled here by Ms. Wood who, if she is biased, makes up for it with her admirable clarity of thought and reason. This is a tight tale told wonderfully well. Excellent work. (4/5 Stars)

Lost To The West by Lars Brownworth

From The Week of October 17, 2010

Though familiar to teachers and scholars of history, the Byzantine empire is, for most 21st century Westerners, a mysterious entity largely lost to the seas of time. If it is remembered at all by this majority, it would surely be for the word byzantine which has come to refer to labyrinthine structures of power, characterized by shadowy players who fight for dictatorial influence. Lost To The West makes clear the extent to which this is a twofold tragedy. After all, the Byzantine empire outlasted the Roman empire by a thousand years and, though it may have been devious in practice, was, for much of that time, the height of world culture.

The Byzantine empire was effectively created in the chaotic, latter days of the Roman empire when, after a dizzying array of emperors crowned and overthrown, Constantine unified the Diocletian factions and, in the process, relocated the capital of the empire to Constantinople, modern day Istanbul. From here, in modern day turkey, Roman emperors ruled a sea-spanning domain for only a few decades before the western, European half of the empire was overrun by Germanic tribes, a massacre which triggered the beginning of the Dark Ages, the descent into a thousand years of cultureless, reasonless existence. The Byzantines, however, suffered no such decline. Largely protected by the intervening sea, it was able to pay off threats to its existence with its, at times, endless supply of wealth. And so, for the next thousand years, the empire of the east carried on Roman traditions lost to the west: their languages, their religions, their laws, their customs. When, in 1453, the Byzantines finally fell to Mehmed the Conquerer and the Ottomans, the last remnant of the Roman world was obliterated, but not before those thousand years preserved for the West the sources of knowledge from which flow many of our own laws and traditions.

Here, Mr. Brownworth chronicles the imperial highlights of the Byzantines, weaving the history of the empire around a recitation of its emperors and their contributions and their eccentricities. And it's here that we see why byzantine has come to be synonymous with powerplays for surely never has their been a longer line of scoundrels, thieves, and egotists who have managed to stay in power. From the greats like Justinian the Law-giver to the louts like Michael the Drunkard, Mr. Brownworth walks us through the gallery of men who not only preserved for the west Greek and Roman traditions, they fought the Ottomans for so long that, by the time Mehmed and his descendents came west for conquest in the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe had sufficiently woken from its scienceless slumber to meet the challenge head on and throw the Turks back into Asia. Without this forgotten empire, we would surely be operating from Islamic traditions, not Christian ones.

This is a fantastic book which harmonizes humor and heavy history into a sweet and edifying tune. A must read for anyone. (4/5 Stars)

Joan Of Arc, Her Story by Reine-pernoud & Marie-veronique Clin

From The Week of September 26, 2010

I'm often critical of histories for being too dry and lifeless, but here is a scholarly work which, while academic in its rigor, has the potency of narrative fiction. Joan of Arc, or Joan the Maid as she called herself, launched a remarkable uprising in France as, at the age of 19, and claiming to herself the will of god, lead a French army against the British during the Hundred Years War. She helped crown a king and win freedom for France, but the divine guidance she claimed was no match for the political machinations inside the French nobility. A faction opposed to Joan's Dauphin betrayed her, sold her out to the British who handed her over to a religious court for trial and sentencing. The trial was a sham which rammed through a conviction against Joan which was later overturned, but not until long after she was burned at the stake, a traditional punishment for Christian heretics.

Joan of Arc was a remarkable woman living in a time antithetical to the rights of women. Distrusted and despised by her enemies, and little more than a means to an end for her king intent upon his own power and achievement, she was wronged at virtually every step by men who did not appreciate her uniqueness. But then the medieval world was not kind to exceptional souls, over all of whom it cast a suspicious and jealous eye.

This is a thoroughly researched biography of Joan and the politics that surrounded her in life and lead to her death. There's a scarcity of speculation here on what her mental condition may have been, but virtually every other aspect of her life is deconstructed and explained in a most edifying way. Dry but enjoyable. Well-balanced. (3/5 Stars)

The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger

Though the Norman conquest of 1066 and the subsequent passage of a millennia have robbed us of much of Anglo-Saxon culture, Misters Lacey and Danziger reconstruct a surprisingly vivid picture of life in England prior to William the Conquerers overthrow of the Anglo-Saxon way of life. Drawing inferences from the illustrations in a contemporary calendar, illustrations which were meant to guide citizens of the day in activities appropriate to the seasons, the authors assemble a favorable portrait of Anglo-Saxon life which suggests they were advanced beyond the culture of the Normans who conquered them. Women had the power to divorce their husbands, or be recompensed for rape. Many crimes were handled by a system of fines in lieu of physical punishments, an inducement to comply with the law without permanently debilitating the perpetrator. Every Anglo-Saxon had the right to hunt the land and claim what he killed. This democratic policy was in contrast to the Norman method of restricting such rights to the nobility and the owners of the land. Finally, kings were not hereditary. They were chosen from a pool of the worthy who were related by blood to the ruling family, a system that promoted ability over the primogeniture practiced by the Normans.

This is not the first book to argue that a people conquered in the name of enlightenment were actually more enlightened than their conquerers. There is, no doubt, a tendency amongst historians to elevate the virtues of cultures lost to antiquity. They, like great rock stars who die young, are frozen in time, their middle-aged warts unrealized. And yet this is a compelling case put forward with charming good humor that cannot but entertain. (3/5 Stars)

A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester

From The Week of January 31, 2010

Mr. Manchester's account of Medieval Europe, its corrupted institutions, its painful trials, and its self-destructive arrogance, alternately burns with indignance and sighs with exasperation. Many have tried to explain or explain away the darkest time in the history of the West, that period roughly between the end of the Roman Empire and the don of 17th century enlightenment, a thousand year stretch of anti-science dominated by a zealous adherence to the Catholic church. Mr. Manchester adds to this debate by exemplifying the lengths to which powerful figures of the time, specifically bishops and monarchs, were willing to go to maintain a stranglehold on power. We see how, time after time, big institutions stomped out the ember of scientific knowledge, unless of course it suited them to foster it, all in the name of obedience to the lord.

We know now the folly of large institutions. We understand that they accrete power unto themselves and, in doing so, set about destroying themselves and all they stand for. For as lord Acton so ably put it, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And this is the shame of this world that is only lit by fire, that the two groups invested with absolute authority, the church and the state, were so self-interested and so corrupt, that they refused to relinquish any authority, no matter what cost to humanity in lives, in careers, in hopes. This is an excellent and depressing book about the power of ignorance and centralized authority. No correlation to our times at all, noooo... (4/5 Stars)

A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

From The Week of August 16, 2009

there is almost nothing about this interminable book that I found redeeming. It is a chronicle of the 14th century, in all its calamities, both wars and plagues. Perhaps there is an interesting pattern here, but it's drowned out by the author's obsessive research which dries out the tale to the point of complete desiccation. Still, if you enjoy ridiculously long novels as dry as the Gobe, go for it. (1/5 Stars)