Henry Plantagenet 1133-1189 (Used Hardcover) - Richard Barber

Henry II is the most imposing figure among the medieval kings of England. His fiefs and domains extended from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and his court was frequented by the greatest thinkers and men of letters of his time, besides ambassadors from all over Europe. This readable and accessible biography offers both a study of his character, and an estimate of his work as a ruler, work which is in a sense the history of his life, since it occupied his entire energies from his accession at the age of twenty-one to his death thirty-five years later.

Nor is this the mere routine of government; from the desolate and lawless anarchy of Stephen's reign, and against the opposition of the great magnates and the Church, he built in England a stable and prosperous realm, and welded his diverse inheritance overseas into a single, and by the standards of the time, peaceful, unit. Only the folly of John dispersed his empire, and his work in England left an enduring mark on the institutions by which we are governed today.

Richard William Barber FRSL FSA FRHistS (born 1941) is a British historian who has published several books about medieval history and literature. His book, The Knight and Chivalry, about the interplay between history and literature, won the Somerset Maugham Award, a well-known British literary prize, in 1971. A similarly themed 2004 book, The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief, was widely praised in the UK press, and received major reviews in The New York Times and The New Republic. Barber has long specialized in Arthurian legend, beginning with the general survey, Arthur of Albion (1961). His other major interest is historical biography: he has published Henry Plantagenet (1964) and a biography of Edward, the Black Prince, Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine (1978). His most recent book is Edward III and the Triumph of England: The Battle of Crécy and the Order of the Garter (2013). (Wikipedia).

0630BU