Battle Castles: 500 Years of Knights and Siege Warfare - Hardcover

Snow, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007455585 ISBN 13: 9780007455584

Publisher: HarperPress, 2013

Synopsis

Join TV’s Dan Snow as the fully illustrated ‘Battle Castles’ brings to thrilling life a cavalcade of medieval fortifications and the clashes that turned empires to dust and mortals into legends.

Castles and their ruins still dominate the landscape and are a constant reminder to us of a time when violence, or the threat of it, was the norm.

Dan Snow explores the world’s greatest medieval castles: from Dover Castle to Château Gaillard, Richard I’s fortress in Normandy, and Castillo de Gibalfaro, the last vanguard of Moorish rule in Spain, to Krak des Chevaliers in Syria – an astounding feat of engineering by the Crusaders.

Each castle’s story is dramatically recounted: the building techniques, the weapons used and daily life within the walls. Spanning the globe, and using the latest CGI reconstructions, Dan Snow gets to the very heart of the bloodshed and battles of the greatest fortresses of the Middle Ages.

About this title

About the Author:

Dan Snow is an historian who has researched, written and presented several documentaries on British and world history for the BBC including Twentieth Century Battlefields, the BAFTA award-winning Battlefield Britain, which he co-presented with his father Peter Snow, and his BBC2 series on the history of the Royal Navy. His writing has appeared in The Times, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Daily Express and BBC History Magazine. He is the author of Death or Victory – a history of Wolfe’s siege of Quebec. Educated at the University of Oxford, he has joint British and Canadian citizenship. He lives in London.

Review:

'An enthralling epic of engineering, blood and battle' Mail on Sunday

'History's coolest expert brings to life some of the bloodiest battles ever fought’ Sun

‘Dan Snow does a fine job of bringing [the sieges] to life' Times

'It has been edited to look like Game of Thrones. Serious historical discovery, however, is what Battle Castle is all about' Guardian

Praise for Death or Victory:

‘This hugely impressive work confirms Dan Snow’s triumphant arrival on the scene. It is by far the best account yet written of a campaign that helped shape North America, and is a fitting tribute on the 250th anniversary of that “wonderful year” 1759' Richard Holmes

‘Dan Snow is perhaps more familiar from television....this, his first book, proves him to be a master military historian. Its grasp of detail is prodigious’ Daily Express

‘Lively and thoughtful...fascinating stuff....one of the book's strengths is its vivid portrayal of the physical backdrop against which the campaign unfolded’ Literary Review

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperPress
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0007455585
• ISBN 13: 9780007455584
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336