The Last Plantagenets

by Thomas B. Costain

Book Overview

There are periods in history when things are seen dimly as through a veil. Such were the years from 1377 to 1485. During this time the Chronicles were silent and the sources of information few. And... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385001428
• ISBN13: 9780385001427
• Release Date: January 1962
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.61 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Last Plantagenets

English History at it's finest. You feel as if you are there with these people, living their lives. Always in good form, this is one of Costain's best.

Good historian; good storyteller

Mr. Costain is a very good historian. His scholarship is thorough and his conclusions are always logically wrought and sometimes surprising. His sensibilities are surprisingly contemporary, although I would not term him a "revisionist," (he wrote this history in the 1950s). For example, in his defense of Richard III (in this, the final book in this four-volume history) he travails against conventional opinion to demonstrate why King Richard was, indeed, not the Richard III of Thomas More as popularized by Shakespeare and held true to this day. And in the first volume, the author dashes myth and idle folklore to side with those historians who portray Eleanor of Aquitaine as the wise and effective check on Henry II and her sons that, she no doubt was. In so doing he disperses, through well-reasoned argument, the rumors and "Entertainment-Tonight" kind of fluff (History-Lite) that many still believe. I had been told these four volumes were classics. After reading them, but without being a scholar of history, I think those critical readers might be right. Certainly, Mr. Costain opened my eyes to a different kind of history telling, one in which an historian does not hesitate to conjecture or opine openly and to honestly make his case and then leave it for a reader's judgement. From front to back, from first through fourth volumes, this is a valuable and pleasurable experience. Mr Costain, presents, argues, harangues convention and, always entertains with a use of the language that is as sharp as his reasoning and as precise as his scholarship. Mr. Costain is a very good story-teller.

The Last Word

Costain once again demonstrates he is a master storyteller and has a knack for infusing life into what could be a dreary story.

A true page turner -- and you might even learn something!

I read this series in the 1980's -- and loved it! It has all of the elements of great drama -- and it is history! Why is it no longer available in bookstores

This is history that reads like a "nail biter" novel

I have an old dog eared paperback of this book. I thought it was long out of print. This and the other three books about the Plantagenets by the same author contain some of the most stirring history of the english speaking peoples. It is hard to believe that a history book could be a page turner, but it's true. They should be required reading in high school, for then our young citizens can gain a proper appreciation of the magnificent beginnings of democracy in England and how our own freedoms, now taken for granted, were won by boody struggles and the wisdom of far-seeing men. This series on the Plantagenets begins with Henry II and his consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine (a wise lady far ahead of her time), and ends with the death of Richard III on Bosworth Field at the hands of the future Henry VII. At the end of this volume the author muses on the mingling of the Saxon and Norman cultures and how they together created an England that brought back the beacon of democracy and respect for human rights for a dark and oppressed world.