Cheap Wars of the Roses (Book) (Alison Weir) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Wars of the Roses

Like most others that have reviewed this, I too was confused by the naming system used in this book. I assumed it was an inherent problem to all British history (I guess I'll find out if I'm right when I read more) and soon became accustomed to the conventions. Granted, I was throughly confused at first, but halfway through the book I picked it up and hardly noticed it. A second reading will definitely help clear up all confusion.

So, as a first time reader of British history, I recommend this account of The War of the Roses. It was informative as well as enjoyable. Weir does a great job detailing the characters of the period instead of just events and battles. On that note, I would have liked a more in depth ananlysis of battle strategies, tactics, and weapons of the time, as that is what I'm most interested in, but reading about the fire behind Queen Katherine and York's attempts to end her influence was great as well.

I'm definitely picking up The Princes in the Tower, so that should tell you how much I enjoyed this one.

Very well written account of Lancaster vs. York
"The Wars of the Roses" is an altogether fascinating account of what may be, I suspect , a not so well understood era of English medieval history. Alison Weir tells the story of the wars between the Houses of Lancaster and York in 15th century England in a most compelling manner. She allows the reader to get to know such disparate characters as the weak and unstable usurper Lancastrian King Henry VI and his ambitious and ruthless queen, Margaret of Anjou; the Duke of York, who led the fight against the Lancasters, at first attempting to establish good government in England under Henry VI, and later, with an eye toward taking the English throne for himself; and York's son, Edward, conscientious and competent, who, after the Duke's death, picked up his father's fallen banner and deposed Henry VI, becoming King Edward IV, and ultimately ending the Wars of the Roses.

Weir weaves personalities and a highly complex series of events into a well organized, easily understandable and highly entertaining narrative. I found "The Wars of the Roses" to be thoroughly enjoyable and very well written indeed.

Great reading but end too quickly...
I can say nothing but huge amount of praises for Allison Weir's War of the Roses. Its superbly readable, entertainingly fun and quite educational. But why would an author of her scholarship end the account of the War of the Roses at Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471? This is supposed to be a book on the War of the Roses, right? Its like writing a book on World War II and ending it at Stalingrad and Fall of Tunis in first half of 1943!! I read Weir's Princes in the Tower and that book is more like an investigation of their death and the blame. War of the Roses stuff were basically background material. So it can't be considered as "second volume" of this book. Since anyone who knows anything about War of Roses knows that the war "officially" ended with Battle of Bosworth in 1485 which saw the fall of Richard Plantagent to Henry Tudor which resulted in the total change of the royal line (even if they are all related in one ways or another), this book should have gone on that point. Weir probably thought that after Tewkesbury, there wasn't much going on military wise for 14 years until Bosworth but politics can be considered as a form of warfare back then and there were a lot of that going on to make War of the Roses one of the more interesting military conflicts in history. But until she stopped, Weir does a very good job and maybe, she can write a real "second volume" of this book.