The Hundred Years War; The English in France, 1337-1453

New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1982. 8th Paperback Printing. Trade paperback. Good. 296, [4] pages. Illustrations. Cover has wear and soiling. Minor staining at bottom edge of some pages. Includes Acknowledgments, Foreword, Epilogue, Appendix: A Note on Currency; Chronology; Select Bibliography; and Index. Chapters include Valois or Plantagenet? 1328-1340; Crecy 1340-1350; Poitiers and the Black Prince, 1350-1360; Charles the Wise 1360-1380; Richard II: A Lost Peace, 1380-1399; Burgundy and Armagnac: England's Opportunity, 1399-1413; Henry V and Agincourt, 1413-1422; John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France 1422-1429; 'The Witch of Orleans' 1429-1435; The End: 'A Dismal Flight', 1450-1453. This social and military history covers the time between 1337 and 1453, the years of plunder, looting, and kidnapping that characterized the war and made fortunes for English soldiers. This lively account of the Hundred Years war is gracefully written, amply illustrated, and well endowed with battle charts, genealogical tables, and maps. This book should find an appreciative audience among the general public. Desmond Seward (born 22 May 1935, Paris) is a British popular historian and the author of many books, including biographies of Henry IV of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Marie Antoinette, Empress Eugénie and Napoleon's family. He specializes in Britain and France in the late Middle Ages. Seward was educated at Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He has written extensively on medieval France, also about the military religious orders on which he is considered an authority. Seward is fluent in French and reads Italian, Latin, medieval English and Norman French. He is noted for conducting research on primary sources at relevant foreign locations, and has written historically-oriented travel books. His work has been translated into ten languages including Hebrew and Japanese. Seward's work has been mainly well received by critics as offering the general reader a balance of readability and modern scholarship. The Hundred Years War: The English in France 1337-1453 (1978) was rated "a well written narrative, beautifully illustrated, and which takes into account most recent research. It is also a good read." in the view of Richard Cobb writing in the New Statesman. The New Yorker noted that "Mr Seward shows us all the famous sights of those roaring times ...and illuminates them with an easy scholarship, nice sense of detail ... and a most agreeable clarity of style."