The great and prolific people of the world are always defined by the times in which they live, a fact which we cannot escape. To understand Hitler one must understand what came before, especially the legacy that Napoleon left upon the European continent. While a straight comparison/contrast of the two leaders is a core theme in this analysis, Desmond Seward transcends that, attacking the interrelational cause-and-effect relationship between the two conquerors. The enormous complexity of these two personalities, of which numerous, exhaustive studies have been made, preclude Seward from exploring each too deeply in one text. His exploration, as with most works of this nature, raises more questions than it solves, but he, quite thoroughly, includes direct references to his sources and admirably provides the reader directions for further study. While his comparison could use more focus on the thematic analysis rather than simply event-related parallels, it was well composed and quite interesting with solidly founded conclusions.

I decided to write a review of this book because I was mistakenly encouraged to acquire it from the above positive reviews. I found this volume entirely lacking. In terms of discussions of Caravaggio's paintings, you can find more erudite reading elsewhere, including from the hand of Sister Wendy (I'm not kidding!). Regarding the artist's life, in this account Caravaggio is but a pale specter lost in the obscurity of what little information Desmond Seward could accumulate. Where there was no information, the author was bereft of anything to say. This was also the case in describing the colorful world of the Italian baroque, a larger subject that should have resulted in better evocation.

What was particularly lamentable about this book was that Seward had taken upon himself to prove that Caravaggio was heterosexual. It is a leitmotif that hammers through the entire text with a persistent, numbing thud. Instead of taking on over two decades worth of scholarly debate on the epistemology of the closet and why so many people think Caravaggio was gay, Seward only draws upon Derek Jarman's fantasy movie about Caravaggio. When analyzing the preponderance of anecdotal evidence that Caravaggio was probably gay, or at least bisexual (which is in itself illuminating as there is already so little information about his life), Seward summarily dismisses the stories as mere hearsay. Because he gives so little information on Caravaggio's life, we are left with the paintings, which speak volumes. However, when the author is faced by the image of St. Francis in ecstasy while laying in the lap of a beautiful, male angel, or when examining the multitude of fair boy beauties, Seward declares that these images are a result of Caravaggio's bowing to his patrons' neo-Platonist tastes. Strangely, Seward later discusses Caravaggio's naturalistic realism, which is the complete antithesis of neo-Platonism. Seward tries to have it all ways and ends up looking like a fool. The last straw is when confronted with the handsome male youth holding a bowl of fruit, his shirt saucily pulled down revealing a naked shoulder and sensual neck, Seward says only that the meaning of this image is unknowable. That may very well be so... for a short-sighted, heterosexual male.

Given the remarkably vibrant hero of the story, as well as the fascinating times, this book's greatest crime is it's cold, graceless prose. Seward has said that he was inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo in writing this biography, but Seward's book has none of the sweep, beauty, nor heart-pounding sense of life that you find in Dumas' work. The only redeeming virtue in Caravaggio: A Passionate Life is its brevity. If you want the Cliff Notes version of Caravaggio's life and times, this can be an adequate place to start, as long as you're prepared for the author's shortcomings. For more insightful writing on Caravaggio's life and works, I suggest you search elsewhere.

Any biography of Caravaggio is bound to be immensely interesting because he was far from ordinary, someone who will never fail to shock and amuse modern readers. While several reviews I have read complain about the brevity of the book, I found its length appropriate-it did the artist justice without bogging the reader down with too much analysis and irrelevant details. It assumes some familiarity with Italy and European history, but it has several chapters devoted solely to discussing the time period, while always making a connection to Caravaggio's life. I found it particularly nice that nearly all of Caravaggio's paintings were discussed and analyzed within the biography. The book has several copies of paintings inserted in its middle, but lacks the majority. Therefore, I found it incredibly helpful to have my Caravaggio anthology nearby so that I could follow the author's discussions. Undoubtedly, anyone that is not a Caravaggio fan would find these sections tremendously boring, but I loved the opportunity to pore over his paintings with a new understanding of their significance and context.

This may be the best of the new Caravaggio books. As a painter and a student of art history, I found this book by Seward to be absolutely absorbing. Seward not only gives insight about Caravaggio's life, but also delves into the events that may have inspired his paintings. Please read this exciting book!

I got this as a result of seeing Ian McKellen's film version of the Shakespearean play. It left me wanting more History as well as more Drama. I had heard that Shakespeare was essentially writing anti-Richard propaganda, since the man who defeated him, Richmond, went on to become Henry VII grandfather of Queen Elizabeth. But while the truth is no doubt more complicated than the play suggests, Seward convincingly shows that Shakespeare got the essentials right even if he did take a few liberties. He doesn't merely elucidate the character of Richard himself, but of those around him. The Woodvilles, Ann, Catesby, Tyrell, Brackenbury, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Stanley were all real players in Richard's rise and fall, well known at the time for their victimizations through or their contributions to his tyranny. (Catesby for example was known as the Cat in a popular rhyme of the day.) Seward gives an in depth though not necessarily complete view of the constraints and shared assumptions they were operating under which eventually leads to the characterization of the King himself. It's difficult to tell how much of Richard's tyranny stemmed from the bloodthirstiness of the times he lived in, or if good really triumphed over evil at Bosworth field, and Seward makes no assertions to that effect. But he does throw into sharp relief the flaws that earned Richard his bloody reputation, and they aren't saintly ones. He is also very clear cut about which primary sources he is drawing from, Thomas More, Dominic Mancini and the Croyland Chronicler, how they culled their information, and how he reads them. I'm sure there's a wealth of information on this subject, yet I found this book to be a very satisfying introduction.

This is an entertaining mixture of historical story-telling, scholary gumshoe work, and criticism. No aspect overpowers the book, which makes it an interestingly told history, and a well-shaped argument for Seward's perspective of Richard III's reign.

Of course, so much of his work in the primary sources leads him to numerous conjectural qualifications. This state of affairs demonstrates why there is so much divergence of opinion on Richard III. However, if both Richard's contemporary subjects and their progeny have such a consistently malignant view of the man's rule, why go to such effort to rehabilitate (revisionize) him? It is obvious Richard's black legend is not solely a product of Tudor propaganda. The man simply did all the heavy lifting on establishing history's view of his reign.

Seward's book is a good read. It's not a purely speculative, breathless narrative of "Maybe this happened, then that ... probably," but an argued case that approaches all of the sources in the field, primary and modern. This book has the potential to become the definitive history of Richard III and his reign; it simply lacks the appeals to cliched romanticism that surround much work in English history.

From the outset, prolific historical author Desmond Seward admits to "having strong views on a man who committed the nastiest state murders in English history." Sometimes these strong views - that Richard was a villain, and not a particularly compentent one - are a bit overstressed, making the book appear to lack objectivity. In particular, Seward invariably finds reasons to credit others, or impersonal historical forces, for anything that might be regarded as an accomplishment of Richard's reign. This is unfortunate, since in the main the book is an excellently organized marshalling of the evidence. Seward's mastery of the source material should be clear to anyone who pays attention to the Introduction and extensive notes. A purely academic work like Ross's biography has a less intrusive point of view, but also is less likely to answer the kinds of questions about Richard that interest a general audience. I would recommend "Richard III: England's Black Legend" to anyone sufficiently interested in this fascinating king to look beyond Shakespeare and Tey.

Having read the author's excellent work on the military religious orders, I frankly expected much more on this, a familiar topic. I was extremely disappointed. In addition to misstatements of fact, his main objective seemed to be to blacken the name of every Yorkist who gained the throne, as well as that of Richard, duke of York. Further, he makes the rather unpleasant Henry VII Tudor virtually into a god. All in all, the book appears to display an unfortunate animus and is overly concerned with Richard III, a subject handled with much greater dexterity by Weir and others, whether or not you agree with their conclusions. This was not a book on the Wars of the Roses, but on the general familial and cultural milieu which formed the character of Richard III. It should have been so titled.

Although Seward's approach to the Wars of the Roses was well researched and loaded with facts, his approach is disappointing. Seward relates the history of the Wars through the lives of five bit players: Margaret Beaufort (Henry Tudor's mother); William Hastings (Edward IV's friend & advisor); John Morton (Henry's advisor); John DeVere, Earl of Oxford (a Lancastrian); and Jane Shore (Edward IV's & William Hastings' mistress). The end result is disappointing because Seward is forced at many points to tie the bit players into the narrative through assumptions. In fact, Jane Shore's role is minimal; most of these sections are actually about her father, John Lambert.

On the plus side, Seward provides the reader with a number of features which leads the reader to a better understanding of the Wars and the players involved: a chronology; a who's who of the major and minor players which is accompanied by short biographies; and genealogical charts.

This book should be viewed as a supplement to other books on the Wars. The following books provide the reader with a much better understanding of the Wars of the Roses: 1. The Wars of the Roses by Charles Ross. This is a great survey of the period written by a professor of medieval history. 2. The Chronicles of the Wars of the Roses, edited by Elizabeth Hallam. A superbly written and illustrated survey which is unfortunately out of print. 3. The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir. Weir's book brilliantly covers the preludes to the Wars and the Wars through the reign of Edward IV.

This history follows five second tier players through the War of the Roses: William Hastings, Edward IV's best friend; Jane Shore, their mistress; Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor - the top Lancastrian during the second phase of the war; Archbishop Morton, Henry's crafty advisor and the Earl of Oxford, a ranking Lancastrian.

This is not a good introduction to the war, not really revolving around the major players like Edward, Henry, Margaret of Anjou and Richard III - but if you are already familiar with the basics (read: Allison Weir), this should be the second book on your shelf about the subject. Each of the five protagonists changed the tide of the war at some point in either the battlefield, bedroom or negotiating room, and Seward makes their stories as riveting as the latest tabloid even when you know what's going to happen next. Especially interesting is the summary about the rest of the lives of the four survivors - most accounts of the war end with Richard III's death, their fates lost in the shuffle. Here, in this book, they get their due.

Disappointing. If you're hoping for a balanced treatment of the life of Henry V, this is not the book for you. If you wish to read a pro-French, late-twentieth century politically correct biography, this is it.

Seward is biased in his use of sources--if it contradicts his conclusions, he does not use it. For example, there were contemporary French historians who blamed Henry's execution of many prisoners during the battle of Agincourt on the actions of the French, but Seward makes no mention of this. Seward also sins against good biography in telling us what Henry was thinking at times--not what he may have been thinking, and not what he wrote or said or others said he said, but what was actually going through his mind.

Seward also refuses to take Henry as a man of his times, instead comparing him to the ideal Politically Correct leader of the late twentieth century. Understandably, Henry is found wanting. Since Henry did not have our modern concept of religious tolerance, he was an intolerant bigot, etc. Sigh.

Not everything Seward writes is negative--he seems to have a grudging admiration for his subject at times--but his bias and use of sources are such that you cannot trust him. This book might be useful as a balance to books on Henry V written by biographers who refuse to see any warts on their subject, but it fails to be a balanced treatment by itself.

This is an essential piece of scholarship on the life of Henry V for the lay reader. Recently re-printed as "Henry V as military commander". Loved by Shakespeare fans or anglophiles, Hal is given the overdue and necessary analysis by one of the finest writers on medieval history for the lay public. (And if you like to think of Shakespeare as an accurate source, check out his vicious & bigoted portrayal of Joan of Arc in "Henry VI".) This is no character assasination however, as the diplomatic skill and administrative abilities of Henry are illuminated by research as well as his megalomania and barbarity. More comparable to a more vicious Edward I than noble prince of courtly virtue. Only faulted by it's brevity or lack of background on Plantagenet family pre-Richard II