Tag Archives: History

The Pursuit of History: The Monarchy

I’m on a mission.  I’m attempting to learn about all the English kings and queens from the Battle of Hastings to Elizabeth II.  Why?  No idea.  It’s just something I’ve become interested in.  Probably because of all the shows they’ve been creating about different historical figures.  There’s The Crown, The Tudors, Victoria, The White Princess, The Spanish Princess, and my personal favorite, The Hollow Crown.

PBS’s The Hollow Crown is approximately fourteen hours of Shakespeare history plays spanning the Middle Ages from the deposition of Richard II to the death of Richard III at Bosworth Field.  (A lot of Henrys in between, by the way.)  I guess that’s what got me interested in knowing what the story was, all the kings and the players in between.

That led me to Dan Jones last year.  I started with The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England.  It’s a great overview of the Middle Ages up to the Wars of the Roses.  Dan Jones is fantastic at making history palatable for the lay reader.  So many non-fiction books are dry, but he definitely has a gift.  This volume gives insight into the time and condition in England and explains some of the things I had only glanced over before like the Crusades and the legend of Richard the Lionheart and the stories of Robin Hood.  (He wasn’t real, sad to say.)  And the stories of the people involved were fascinating.  If you can keep them all straight.  Between the Richards and the Henrys and the Catherines and the Marys I wasn’t always sure who was plotting against who, but it was a great read.  It definitely got the lineage of the monarchy straighter in my head than it’s ever been.  The sequel, The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors, was just as good.

 I understand not everyone wants to read 1000 pages of Medieval history, but I did.  And I thought I would share because there might be some other person out there who wants to make the British monarchy their new obsession.  Now all I need is for Dan Jones to get out of the Middle Ages and write a history of the Stewart dynasty and the Georges who ruled in the 18th and 19th centuries because that’s where my gap is right now.

Anyway, whatever literary pursuit you take on next, happy reading, y’all!

Advertisement

The Pursuit of History: Northern Ireland

I recently spent a weekend absorbed in Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.  I love a good nonfiction and when I saw this book advertised, I realized that even though I had heard U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, I had no real knowledge of the time in Ireland known as The Troubles.  I decided that needed to change.

I found the book fascinating and informative.  One complaint about it was that it doesn’t explain where the sectarian discrimination came from and I think at the is point no one really knows anymore.  It’s there and it’s crazy and lives have been lost and destroyed because of it.  This book is not for the faint of heart.  The 1970’s were particularly brutal and are described in detail.  The story details the activities of the IRA and one woman who was “disappeared” for being an informant.  It was a sad and effecting story.  I would recommend it for anyone who wants an overview of the Troubles especially with the controversy surrounding Brexit.  Many believe the UK’s exit from the EU will threaten the tenuous peace in Northern Ireland.

Happily, Derry Girls, the Netflix series from Ireland supplemented my study of the Troubles with wit and humor.  Say Nothing can be a bit of a downer but combining it with a comedy series helped to take the sting out.  Not that we should ever forget what those people went through and God forbid it should happen again.  But that show is hilarious, and I recommend it too.

Whether you claim Irish heritage or not, it’s history worth knowing.  So, if you have a weekend to kill, curl up with it.  But remember: whatever you say, say nothing.