Nigel Saul takes a relatively benign view of medieval noblemen. He rejects the once-fashionable notion that war was all about money and land, and that chivalry was just tinsel. And, although he sees a steep decline in standards in the last medieval century, he thinks that chivalric values did have a real influence in civilising the conduct of war... Saul can make the most unpromising material speak to us with a directness that can surprise even those who are already familiar with it. This is a rich book that does ample justice to its complex theme

Clear sighted history

Professor Saul's achievement is to provide for the first time a holistic overview of English chivalric culture in its historical perspective. This is a fine book, whose richness of texture defies a brief review, but which will undoubtedly become a classic

The book is full of solid, engrossing history…[it] serves, too, as a primer in medieval history, and the political and martial achievements of this country's rulers from William to Henry VII… Saul is a clear-eyed historian, not one to be taken in by popular legend

Chivalry has often been something of a footnote in other volumes concerning the Middle Ages but here Saul proves that it is a worthy topic in and of itself

Elegant history...It is beautifully written and lets you see your own humble plot in its historical and geographical context

Uglow is being modest: her long and leisurely stroll through 2.000 years of British gardening is dense with the foliage of historical research, and highly decorated with literary references and colourful anecdotes

Enthralling...an elegant and witty gem

In this pacey retelling of a classic love story, Kate Williams has created a sparkling life worthy of Emma herself. A new biography for a new generation

Popular history at its best

Every intricate detail is laid out, and Kate Williams' writing is so immediate, you feel all but transported...

From Soho tart to glamour model, diplomatic wife in Naples to the most famous extra-marital passion in UK history: Emma Hamilton's amazing tale is hardly unfamiliar. Williams tells it shrewdly and well, with access to recently discovered letters and a sharp contemporary spin. In her skilled hands, Lord Nelson's lover, for all her "charisma, intelligence and charm" falls foul both of ingrained misogyny and a fledgling culture that both gave her stardom and exacted a fearsome price.

Lively, sympathetic and meticulously researched

Williams account is both balanced and evocative...[Emma Hamilton's] ruthless but romantic pursuit of celebrity is so close to our own time that the story barely needs contemporary parallels

Divertingly and instructively illuminates a time and culture both far away and intriguingly like our own, and resurrects a woman whose mingled vulnerability and resilience - to say nothing of her glamour - still have the power to fascinate

The first self-made superstar, the first manipulative media celebrity, dazzling Europe with her style and beauty as muse to artists and mistress to Nelson ... Emma famously gets her comeuppance, and her headlong flight to romantic destruction is told with novelistic dash

Rigorous and relevant

Pries open the most astounding archives to uncover what our recent ancestors tried to hide