the WARS of the ROSES

the WARS of the ROSES The Hollow Crown: the Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudors By Dan Jones Faber & Faber, 2014, 434 pages

A metallic, five-pointed Tudor rose glints menacingly from the dust cover of Dan Jones' The Hollow Crown, looking suspiciously like the emblem for a new instalment of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.

This book isn't fiction, however. It details an important episode in British history: the Wars of the Roses. Traditionally dated 14551487, these were a set of civil wars and dynastic conflicts in the later fifteenth century which resulted in the near extinction of the Plantagenet line of kings and the rise of the new Tudor dynasty.

The Wars of the Roses were part of the sequence of events that brought medieval England into the modern age. Even in Australia, the significance of this era of history should not be discounted. Besides inspiring writers over the ages (think Shakespeare's Richard III), the Wars of the Roses helped shape the course of British history, which is an integral part of our heritage.

UK-based historian Dan Jones is emerging as a popular writer of medieval English history. His previous book-The Plantagenets: the Kings Who Made England (2012)- became a bestseller in the United States upon its launch in 2013.

An accomplished journalist as well as an astute historian, Jones uses his experience in journalism to understand what gets people hooked on reading about other people's lives.

The Hollow Crown...