Helen Carr (1)

John of Gaunt was the third son of Edward III. Born in Flanders during war, he grew up to be an individual who divided opinion. On one hand he was a brilliant leader of troops, a forward-thinking patron of the arts and religion and a devoted family man. On the other he was derided as a rich and sinful man who supported his nephew unstintingly and paid a heavy price in terms of cost. What John did do is to found the Lancastrian line through the Wars of the Roses.
This is not an excessively long book, it is tightly written and very readable. The key things that come through are around John's loyalty to his family. He gave up the woman he loved as he felt that he was being sinful and he supported his nephew Richard over his own brother due to a deathbed promise to the boy's father. There have not been many biographies of John, even though he is a key figure in 15th century politics and this is excellent.… (más)

This book presents itself as an update of the famous book by E.H. Carr, What is History? from 1961. The compiler Helen is a great-granddaughter of the British diplomat and specialist in International Relations. She makes no secret of the fact that this is also a tribute to her ancestor. This translates into about 20 short chapters that discuss an aspect of history, often from a current affairs perspective, very diverse in terms of themes, and also reasonably committed. The latter refers to the task of bringing more attention to minority groups (women, indigenous peoples, queer history, etc.). “Sixty years on from What is History? E.H. Carr's questions about how we investigate and interrogate the past remain. Sixty years on, it is crucial as well as timely to reinvestigate, reinterrogate and reinterpret our understanding of the past. Not the past of the select few, but the past of the many, in order to demonstrate, share – shout from the rooftops – that history belongs to us all.” Commendable, certainly, but isn’t this approach slightly outdated by now? Anyway, this is a very worthwhile book. More in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5958006276.… (más)

What is History, Now? is in a sense What is History IV?: it follows on from the highly influential What is History? (1961), and two previous follow-up collections, What is History Today? (1985) and What is History Now? (2002). Editors Helen Carr and Suzannah Lipscomb have produced a broad array of essays with their eye firmly on accessibilty. I could see many of these—such as Jaipreet Virdi’s on the history of disability—working really well in the undergraduate classroom. There are a small number of fairly flimsy contributions that I didn’t think said much that was new or striking, although perhaps they might find an appreciative reader in someone very new to a particular subject. Equally, while this is a collection that aims for an understanding of the importance of global history, it is one written with its feet very firmly planted in Britain.… (más)

This is a well-researched and well written biography of one of the most prominent of Medieval characters who did not actually become king. He was the third son of King Edward III, and grew up against the background of the early stages of the Anglo-French conflict known to later generations as the Hundred Years War, learning from the military exploits of his father and his elder brother Edward, the Black Prince. In many ways he was a conventional nobleman of his times, a military figure and a mainstay of the thrones of his father and later of his nephew King Richard II against the growing power of the nascent Parliament and of the common people, as shown in the so-called Peasants' Revolt. At the same time, he is possibly best known to many readers now for his famous love affair with Katherine Swynford, mother of his illegitimate children, who were later legitimised after they got married in the last decade of his life, after the death of his second wife Constance of Castile. This of course paved the way in the following century for the conflict known as the War of the Roses. At his death he was witnessing his Lancastrian inheritance from his first wife Blanche being severely challenged by the increasingly tyrannical King Richard II. This is a well rounded account of the subject's life, though of course much is unknown about his life especially in his earlier years, and a lot of this period is about the events of the time, and mentioning that John was or may have been involved. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in Medieval history.… (más)