It's an excellent book on a compelling, if disturbed, set of subjects. Here's an excerpt from the review:
"Those depressed about the state of 21st-century American politics take solace: Governance really has advanced since the late Middle Ages, when any lout, psychopath or 10-year-old might wind up as your chief executive, triggering a family feud, uprising, civil war or, as often as not, a combination of the three. The Plantagenets’ dysfunction surpasses anything on reality television in that the actors lead armies against one another."
Enjoy.
For those looking for more literary criticism, my most recent review for the Post was of Olympia Snowe's new memoir/call to action, Fighting for Common Ground, published in June, and before that of a boisterous, flawed attack on the late Christopher Hitchens.
As a Ricardian I must say that Richard lll did not have a hunchback. He had scoliosis of the spine. He also did not murder his two nephews in the tower. Read Walpole on this. Or read Josephine Tey's brilliant work, "The Daughter of Time". (which, by the way, is Truth.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, you might want to view (on U-Tube) the finding of the last Plantagenet king, his disenterment from the car park (under the letter "R") and the forensic evidence and the amazing technology used to "flesh out" his skull so that we may see what he really looked like.
You must realize that Shakespear worked under the Tudors and his telling of the story of Richard lll was somewhat, if not mostly to exonerate the Tudor name.
I know you are a very busy writer but please find the time to read Tey and take it from there.
Respectfully,
Joanne Moore
Brunswick