Author:David Starkey
For the kings and queens of England, a trumpet fanfare or crash of cymbals could be as vital a weapon as a cannon. Showcasing a monarch’s power, prestige and taste, music has been the lifeblood of many a royal dynasty.
From sacred choral works to soaring symphonies, Music and Monarchy looks at how England’s character was shaped by its music. To David Starkey and Katie Greening, works like Handel’s Water Music and Tallis’s Mass for Four Voices were more than entertainment – they were pieces signalling political intent,
wealth and ambition.
Starkey and Greening examine England’s most iconic musical works to demonstrate how political power has been a part of musical composition for centuries. Many of our current musical motifs of nationhood, whether it’s the Last Night of the Proms or football terraces erupting in song, have their origins in the way the crown has shaped the national soundtrack.
Published to coincide with a major BBC series, Music and Monarchy is not a book about music. It is a history of England written in music, from our leading royal historian.
Magnificent ... [a] a superbly written book ... Merridale's idea was to use the Kremlin like a backdrop to an opera - a screen on which to project scenes from Russia's violent and dramatic history. That way she tells the fortress's story without lapsing into architectural didacticism or guidebook prose, and it works wonderfully
—— George Walden , TelegraphThis simply superb chronicle of the Kremlin is really a brilliant and unputdownable history of Russia itself from the early Tsars via Lenin and Stalin to Putin; anyone who wants to understand Russia today will not only learn a lot but will enjoy every page ... wonderful
—— Simon Sebag Montefiore , Telegraph[Merridale] combines impeccable scholarship with a deep feeling for the humanity of the people she writes about. Her style is accurate, spare, direct and warm-hearted, about as far from the academy as you can get ... [Red Fortress] is a brilliant meditation on Russian history and the myths with which the Russians have sought to console themselves
—— Rodric Braithwaite , GuardianAddictively clever history ... Merridale whisks us through a series of terrific melodramas
—— Dominic Sandbrook , Sunday Times BOOKS OF THE YEARA zingy, razor-keen history of the Kremlin
—— Ian Thomson , Spectator BOOKS OF THE YEARMerridale captures very well the suffocating atmosphere of those overheated corridors, where every room was bugged and mere proximity to power was often a death sentence ... she writes superbly. She has a gift for the tart insight ... and an eye for the telling anecdote
—— Tony Brenton , The TimesExhilarating ... Both in its modernist sense of "time in flux" and in its style, Red Fortress is at the furthest possible remove from Soviet schoolroom sermons about "the period of feudal atomization" and the rise of the centralizing state ... This is a book of detail and imagination ... a neohistorical account of the Russian past ... Red Fortress made me remember the open-mouthed delight I took when, hardly old enough to know where Russia was, I studied the émigré artist Boris Artsybashev's elegant, aetiolated portraits of medieval Russian princes
—— Catriona Kelly , GuardianRed Fortress is a tour de force, as readable as it is extensively researched ... It never flags through nearly 10 centuries of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet history ... [Merridale] is both mythbuster and pilgrim, captivated by her subject even while turning an eye of scholarly detachment to it
—— Virginia Rounding , Financial TimesOne of the best popular histories of Russia in any language
—— Times Literary SupplementImmensely readable ... Merridale recounts [the Kremlin's] eventful history with great skill and tremendous narrative verve
—— Ian Critchley , Sunday TimesMerridale is a historian by training, but she has a detective's nose and a novelist's way with words
—— EconomistAs with many important books, the reader will wonder why nothing like Catherine Merridale's work ... has been written before ... Merridale has succeeded in stripping off the veneer... She has the skills to get guardians of secret places talking and to negotiate access with Russian archivists, and thus penetrate the inner workings of the Kremlin. At the same time, she has a feeling for the site that brings dry archaeological and architectural facts to life: few writers can write the biography of a city or a citadel ... The Kremlin's history is likely to be frozen for decades to come. This unique and stunningly well-illustrated book is going to be a definitive study for just as long
—— Donald Rayfield , Literary ReviewCatherine Merridale's sparkling new book shows that it is people who dominate architecture
—— BBC History MagazineAs usual, [Merridale's] engaging writing style combines a keen eye for detail with a human touch
—— Times Higher Education[A] superb history of the Kremlin ... pages of lucid prose
—— Irish TimesThomas Harding has written a book of two intersecting lives: His great uncle, a German Jew and potential Nazi victim, and Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz. In a neat historical irony, his uncle became a British officer who tracked down war criminals, including one of the world’s worst mass murderers. A fascinating account, with chunks of new information, about one of history's darkest chapters.
—— Richard Breitman, Author of The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and The Final Solution and Editor-in-chief of the U.S. Holocaust Museum's Holocaust and Genocide StudiesWritten with the verve of a writer and the sure touch of an historian, Thomas Harding's Hanns and Rudolf is a fascinating, fresh, and compelling work of history.
—— Jay WinikA vivid account of the pursuit of justice and what happened to two men who found themselves in the chaos of evil of Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
—— Sunday Business PostThomas Harding … tells the story with great verve.
—— Financial TimesAn astonishing and moving story…[an] excellent book
—— Britain at War magazineRemarkable … A beautifully balanced double biography, admirably measured but also gripping, which offers a fresh perspective on a much-examined subject
—— Good Book GuideA remarkable book, which deserves a wide readership.
—— The Oldiefascinating, intelligent, compelling, dramatic and intimate... The style is open, clear, forthright, and sprightly. It seeks – and finds – clarity at all times, whether to events or character, and delivers everything it manages to pick out of the private archives, classified documents and more just brilliantly.
—— The BookbagHanns and Rudolf is a magnificent book. In an era where WWII is passing from living memory and into history, it offers both, and does so in a way which is spellbinding, poignant and harrowing.
—— Nudge Me NowHarding builds a compelling, remarkable picture of war and its aftermath
—— Sunday TimesHoss’s life is grimly fascinating … Hanns and Rudolf is written with a suppressed fury at the moral emptiness of men like him
—— The TimesPerhaps one of the finest books on the Holocaust and the Second World War that I have read in a long time.
—— Adam Cannon , The Jewish Telegraph[A] gripping and superbly written book
—— Mail on Sunday