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Amazon.co.uk Review
Trial By Battle is not for the faint-hearted. Its 650 pages only cover the period from the death of Charles IV, the last Capetian King of France to the surrender of Calais to the English in 1347. At this rate, it will take at least another six volumes to get to the end. But for those who take a deep breath and just decide to go for it, Sumption more than repays the effort. He takes a decidedly old-fashioned approach to history, being short on analysis and long on narrative, but there is nothing old-fashioned about his style. He has avoided the academic pitfalls of turgid prose and inaccessibility to produce a work of great readability that challenges many traditional assumptions.
To read many historians, the Hundred Years War was a glorious period of nobility and chivalry. Sumption gives the lie to this. He shows the war to be venal, savage and mercenary. Soldiers often gave more thought to their captives than they did for their cause, as huge ransoms could be extracted for their release. We're only talking noble hostages, mind. The ordinary foot soldier had no monetary value and was usually butchered on the spot. The same applied to civilians. This wasn't a war where human life was sanctified and the fighting was restricted to the battlefield. It had all the subtlety of the bombing of Dresden as both sides, and England in particular as the fighting was almost entirely restricted to mainland France, created a wave of terror to force the locals into submission. "Not a man or woman of substance dared to wait in the towns and castles or in the country around; wherever our army appeared, they fled away", wrote one English observer. Sumption's readers are likely to have precisely the opposite reaction. --John Crace
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sumption and his War,
By Edward Rex "King Arthur" (Kent, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Trial by Battle: The Hundred Years War, Vol. 1: Trial by Battle v. 1 (Paperback)
Sumption's first book on the Hundred Years War is great. He protrays his subjects with such vigor and imagination. Edward III, Philip VI, William of Hainualt...all of these men fly off the page onto a storyboard that is bloody, but is great. Edward III is a military leader who is a calculating politican who makes disatrous mistakes in the first phase of the war, then remerges as the aribtor of Europe after Crecy and Calais; Philip VI is the weak minded, suspicious King of France who is victorius at first but then is draw downhill by his mistakes and Edward's impending greatness. Truly this is a superb work.This book gets five stars all the way. It is the greatest book on the first phrase of the Hundred Years war. Everything was simply fascinating. At to it readability and you can't deny that Sumption has skill. I just wish he would quit his court job and produce more of these wonderful books.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Readable, scholarly account of the 100 years war.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Trial by Battle: The Hundred Years War, Vol. 1: Trial by Battle v. 1 (Paperback)
This is a highly readable and well written account of the 100 years war. It is detailed (this volume stops just after the battle of Crecy) - not boring - yet a well informed read. The opening chapter describing medieval Paris is great (especially if you know modern day Paris).The book gives you a very good feel for the machinations of medieval politics and the difficulties of campaigning in war.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb stuff; not to be missed,
By
This review is from: Trial by Battle: The Hundred Years War, Vol. 1: Trial by Battle v. 1 (Paperback)
Trial by Battle is even more capivating than Trial by FIre. Sumption's text is a dream to follow, always engaging and thoroughly human. While I have always been interested in the Hundred Years War I had never really appreciated the depths to which the French crown had sunk, a catastophe to equate with many modern day disaster areas..
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