I'm continuing my journey through the historiography of the Hundred Years War. This week I'm reviewing Desmond Seward's narrative history of the war from 1978.

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It may be damning with faint praise, but I expected Desmond Seward’s The Hundred Years War to be worse. Don’t misunderstand me, I didn’t think it would be terrible, but it was first published in 1978 which is a long time ago given how much has been written on the Hundred Years War since. On the whole I weas pleasantly surprised by my experience with Seward’s history. I probably still wouldn’t recommend it to most people, it has some glaring problems mostly derived from its age, but on the whole, it was a lot better than I expected!

The Hundred Years War is a classic narrative history of Anglo-French conflict from 1337 to 1453. It is clearly an antecedent to more recent books like Jonathan Sumption’s Trial by Battle as well as its sequels and Juliet Barker’s Conquest. I am a little surprised to say that I think I prefer Seward’s history to both of those books. While the latter examples include more up to date research and a finer grain of detail, Seward does in about 270 pages what Sumption does in 1800 (and counting). Seward also has none of Barker’s stark English nationalism. In fact, Seward’s account is impressively even handed for the most part. He is critical of Henry V, happy to highlight his flaws along with his triumphs, and praises Charles V’s competence (a rarity in English language popular histories). He is arguably a bit harsh on Joan of Arc and Charles VII but in the case of the former he seems to be pushing back against a prevailing view that Joan was indispensable to French victory and in the latter while harsh, it largely mirrors the portrayal in Shakespeare that has long been the popular image of the French king.

Seward’s writing is very readable and engaging, I breezed through the book and didn’t feel like I was bogged down in unnecessary detail or bizarre asides. He even spends a reasonable amount of time on the fall of Normandy and Gascony in the 1450s, a novelty in books like this. I can see how Seward’s history would have been a big deal upon release and why it has remained popular over the decades since.

That having been said, it is definitely showing its age. In areas of military history Seward is far out of step with modern historiography. At Agincourt he gives the French as having 40,000+ soldiers to approximately 8,000 English. Anne Curry’s research has made a very strong case for the position that the English were only slightly outnumbered, and even proponents of a larger French army wouldn’t consider figures as large as those Seward quotes. Seward includes pretty much no references, either, so unless he mentions a source in the text it is largely impossible to determine what he is using as a basis for figures like this. Agincourt is probably the most egregious example, but throughout the book it is easy to see how it is rooted in a much older military historiography. That is not Seward’s fault, he worked with what he had at the time of writing, but it is reason to be wary of reading his book uncritically in 2022. I am also made a little wary by the fact that if I can see glaring errors in my specialty there is a likelihood that other errors exist that didn’t jump out at me because I am not as familiar with the historiography. While I didn’t notice anything as problematic as his accounts of Crécy and Agincourt (the account of Poitiers was less troubling), especially in comparison to more recent histories I have read, I am still not an expert in all things Hundred Years War and could have missed other flaws.

For this reason, I wouldn’t recommend you seek out a copy of Seward to read. If you desperately have to have a narrative history of the Hundred Years War and no alternative to narrative will do then Seward is still a reasonably good option. However, I would strongly recommend reading something like David Green’s The Hundred Years War: A People’s History – it will give you plenty of narrative in addition to a lot more contextual information on the period and is based in much more recent historiography. However, if what is on your shelf or in your local library is Seward, you could do worse than reading him as an introduction to the topic.

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If you're interested you can find more of my Hundred Years War related reviews and musings at: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/category/Hundred+Years+War

Hey all.

Each year I try to read a few large history books (3 or more) on a specific historical era/area. This year was Russian/Romanov history (I'm just finishing Rasputin by Douglas Smith); last year it was the Crusades; and the year before that The Great Game.

Next year I'd like to read about the Ottomans, Istanbul and the Young Turks. Does anyone have any recommendations or ideas on this subject? In particular, are there any good biographies or books that discuss Enver Pasha who seems to be a fucking weird character.

Cheers!

Would you trust a book written by someone outside of academia?

Picked up a book recently on the Great Famine who’s author was a former journalist. The first page was used to criticise a modern political party, not one I agree with but it wasn’t setting a good precedent for the controversial topic he was writing about. Looking up the book gave me a journal article that described it as “populist history”.

I'm hoping for some book recommendations specifically regarding the beginnings of Noise Pollution.

I'm hitting this from a couple different angles...

One being how the Title "Noise Pollution" was created as a catchphrase/cry for help for us to use identifying a problem that We as humans created and was first noticed as a problem for our environment and that needed the Public's involvement.

Second, how the condition of "Noise Pollution" has changed between then and now. Do we even keep track in a cohesive way? Has the term been segregated in such a way that we rarely recognize the groups within different fields of study working on the same overall goals and their progress and do they work for or against eachother due to the potential disconnect of the employment/scholarly Titles they fall under while dedicating their own time and resources to provide results with.

I understand it can seem a bit broad in it's scope and I'd love to have some recommendations on reading materials Or the Names of individuals that stand out as Players in this particular section of environmental warfare created by our desire for balance between advancement of innovation leading to our own convenience and the stewardship we've given ourselves over all other life forms effected by this self appointed role of ownership.

I'm truly open to any type of literature or research angles as long as it's something I can access for free from the internet to libraries to educate myself about the cures and damages related "Noise Pollution" from outer space to the bottom of our oceans and everything in-between.

Thanks in advance!

I know it's brand new but any thoughts on Amanda Podany's Weavers, Scribes, and Kings? I got impatient and already bought it (and her work in general seems to be well received here) so anything to keep in mind as I read it?

I'm finishing John Marco Allegro's The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (I've had a hard time reading that one as a non-native English speaker). Allegro's theory (about early Christianity being rooted in old fertility cults that used psychoactive fungi) was very controversial and is questioned by many historians and philologists to this day.

I know about the work of Gordon Wasson, Carl Ruck, etc. I plan on reading their books in the future. But does anybody know about other books or studies in this field that refute these investigations or point in another direction?

I’m looking for books on the development of the world economy from a world-systems angle. I just finished Janet Abu-Lughod’s “Before European Hegemony” and I’m looking for something that takes the same concepts to a more modern era. Wallerstein or Andre Gunder Frank seem commonly linked, but I’m not sure where to start or how their work has held up.