Foto de l'autor

Nigel Jones (1) (1951–)

Autor/a de Tower: An Epic History of the Tower of London

Per altres autors anomenats Nigel Jones, vegeu la pàgina de desambiguació.

8+ obres 476 Membres 13 Ressenyes

Sobre l'autor

Nigel Jones portrays every facet of a year that changed Britain for ever: from gun-running in Ulster to militant suffragette activism; from Edwardian high society's 'last summer' to the embarkation of the British Expeditionary Force. Peace and War offers a memorable and moving portrait of a society mostra'n més and nation on the brink. mostra'n menys

Obres de Nigel Jones

Obres associades

The Venlo Incident: A True Story of Double-Dealing, Captivity, and a Murderous Nazi Plot (1950) — Col·laborador, algunes edicions33 exemplars

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Altres noms
Jones, Nigel H.
Data de naixement
1951
Gènere
male
Nacionalitat
England
UK
Lloc de naixement
Woking, Surrey, England, UK
Professions
historian
biographer
journalist

Membres

Ressenyes

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/tower-by-nigel-jones/

It’s a rollicking good book on British political history between the construction of the Tower in the eleventh century, and its transformation from security asset to tourism spot in the nineteenth century, and how that affected the building – most often of course as a prison and place of execution for those who had fallen out with the state, but also as a centre of administration, in particular as the location of the Mint.

But the gore is the point. Two kings of England were murdered there in the late fifteenth century (Henry VI and Edward V). Two of Henry VIII’s queens were executed there (Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard). Thomas More ends up there. So does Samuel Pepys, for a while. Unfortunately Jones doesn’t mention either Sir John Perrot or my ancestor who was brought down in his wake.

I’d hoped for a little more. A book about the exercise of state coercive power and government-sanctioned violence could surely have interrogated these concepts a bit. There’s also a whole city outside the gates which underwent its own transformations – there are a couple of moments when the two intersect (the Peasants’ Revolt; the Great Fire) but otherwise thebook treats them rather separately. So it’s a good starting point, but I’m going to have to dig further.
… (més)
½
 
Marcat
nwhyte | Hi ha 7 ressenyes més | Jul 23, 2022 |
A very readable volume that covers the culture, politics, and arts of Britain in 1914 just before the start of WW I. Some themes analyzed include the Suffragette movement and its move to violence, the importance of ocean liners and the impact of shipping disasters, poets and painters, how the various social and economic groups in Britain spent their last summer of peace and how the British Government tried to avoid the war and why they did not. The last chapters cover the road to war and the first experiences of the men who fought.

A wonderful read that has an annotated bibliography that makes it easy for the reader to follow up on a personality of issue.
… (més)
 
Marcat
lamour | Hi ha 1 ressenya més | Apr 6, 2022 |
As a fiction snob, I was honestly and very pleasantly amazed by how much I enjoyed this book. So often I feel as though reading nonfiction is a chore, something I make myself do to so that I can say I'm well-rounded, but this book swept me up and along. I loved reading all the little stories of different people who'd lived in and around the tower--Jones definitely tells a good story, and the Tower of London has more than its fair share of them. Definitely changed my whole outlook on the place that I (like so many others) associate almost exclusively with torture and beheadings.

That said, it's a good thing I have a little bit of familiarity with historical British royalty and nobility (albeit via historical fiction and - worse! - Shakespeare), because otherwise I would have been completely confused--and still was, in parts--about who was who. I'm surprised that the book does not include any family trees for the different houses--but then, I guess this isn't a book that you'd be likely to pick up if you didn't already have some familiarity. Even if it did essentially end up being a history of the British monarchy (in no small part because the Tower was actually a lived-in palace for much longer than I thought!), it was fascinating and overall well-done, and I'm glad I had the lens of the Tower through which to focus such a daunting history.

It would have been nice to have some maps--the tower went through so many different phases over the years and I didn't have much of any idea where any of the towers were--and I've been lucky enough to visit! Perhaps it was too expensive to get the rights or hire an artist? And why were the (largely unnecessary) images they did have inserted between pages 312 and 313? Isn't the traditional place smack dab in the middle?

The structure of the book itself was also a little odd. I didn't understand why there were two Parts - why not three or four? Or none? While the text was, overall, chronological, chapters like "The Menagerie and the Mint" and "Great Escapes" stopped the show to span most of the Tower's history. The latter chapter spoke quite a bit about Charles II's rule before dropping us back off with James I in the following chapter.

While a bit perplexing, these detours didn't detract from the book. I do wish there had been a bit more detail about the tower between the mid 1800s and the 2000s--I know the blood and death was mostly over, but it seems like there would still be some interesting stories about what happened to the archives, for example, or anything that was found during renovations to make the place suitable for tourists. A bit more about the history of the beefeaters, perhaps. Basically, I didn't want it to end!

This book was so much fun that there were quite a few things and people I'd love to read more about in the future, provided someone has written about them. To that end, in and among the quotes in my round up there will also be the names of people marked IRAWBAT--or, "I'd Read A Whole Book About Them". Enjoy!

16) Isabella of Angouleme and Maud Fitzwalter - IRAWBAT
As with Henry VIII, it interested me that King John respected Maud's refusal to become his mistress. I feel like rape is so ubiquitous these days--in our culture and in our media representations of the past--that the idea of a man respecting a woman's decision about her body seems almost, well, quaint. So she died in agony...but no one violated her bodily autonomy by torturing her so persionally. That's pretty sick isn't it? When did that attitude change?

32) Given the limited space at the Tower, species were crammed uncomfortably close together, living cheek by beak, so to speak...
...the Tower's cramped confines offended a public awakening to a new fellow feeling for our furred and feathered friends.
Jones had far too much fun on this page!

Having loved the Hollow Crown so much and absorbed the second Henriad last year, it was fascinating to me to find out just how truly terrible some of the kings of England were--not in that they were actively bad (and boy was Henry VIII worse than I thought!), but that they had no idea what they were doing.

84) One plotter, Sir Thomas Blount, not being a peer, was denied the privilege of a swift beheading and endured the full horrors of a traitor's death [hanged, drawn, and quartered]... Asked if he wanted a drink, he replied with a magnificent death's door jest, "No, for I should not know where to put it."
Talk about gallows humor! Apparently torture to the death brings out the joker in quite a few people.

87) Again, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the realities of Shakespeare's plays.

87) Margaret Merssh - IRAWBAT
The wife of the Tower blacksmith was a qualified blacksmith in her own right, doing both the more delicate work and equipping the Tower for its best known usage: "eighteen pairs of fetters and eight pairs of manacles."

130) The future Richard III's murder of King Henry VI was the least secret conspiracy ever. Like, everyone knew about it. Also, I need to find a book about the forensics of the British kings and queens, cause there's a lot of interesting stuff going on with the bones.

133) Duke of Clarence is cray cray. More importantly, I need to play with the idea that "imagining" meant attempting to bring about by magic--because as scary as it was then, it's a really cool concept to consider now!

159) Lambert Simnel - IRAWBAT

206) Anne Askew - ARAWBAT - as Jones puts it, "a sixteenth-century feminist." One thing that struck me several times was just how early ideas about equality were around--we tend to think of them as very modern, but they're not--it just took that long for the people in charge to stop killing the people who protested. Think how different the world could have been if someone like Anne Askew had succeeded.

214) Jones describes Henry VIII as "England's Stalin", which I find incredibly apt. In all the historical fiction I've read about his wives, his cruelty to the common people somehow gets swept under the rug. Maybe because fiction books tend to get the reader caught up in the stories of individuals.

218) I really appreciated Jones's handling of Jane Grey. The one book I read that was specifically about her was by Ann Rinaldi, and it definitely treated her like a dimwit. Learning that she lived with Elizabeth for a while, that she was well-self-educated, made me respect her much more than Rinaldi's story did. I feel even more cheated now than when I first finished "[b:Nine Days a Queen|143124|Nine Days a Queen The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey|Ann Rinaldi|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348992142s/143124.jpg|1404875]". It seems to have been much more influenced by the famous portrait that Jones discusses (243) as being so false to who Jane was than by the records Jones found of her efforts to self educate and, once crowned, make decisions for herself. So yeah, Lady Jane Grey - IRAWBAT.

228) I also had no idea how independent Edward VI was, despite his youth - IRAWBAT.

286) Recognized a few names from (and I'm sure this was the intention) [b:The Sandman|23754|The Sandman, Vol. 1 Preludes and Nocturnes (The Sandman, #1)|Neil Gaiman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411609637s/23754.jpg|1228437]: the "Wizard Earl" Henry Percy, the School of Night, and, of course, John Dee. IRAWBAT

289) At first, wishing to keep his friend [the king's lover Robert Carr, over whom he had great influence and who, in turn, influenced the king] happy, Thomas Overbury encouraged the dalliance [with Frances Howard]. A gifted writer, Overbury even penned he love letters that Carr sent to Frances. When it dawned on him that the couple wanted to marry, however, Overbury reverted to violent opposition, as he could see himself losing his hold over his feeble friend, who would become a creature of the Howard clan. ... He wrote a best-selling tract, The Wife, proving why Frances would be an unsuitable spouse to his friend [Carr].
As deadly (literally) serious as this all is, I couldn't help laughing over this comedy of errors. The absurdity of the love triangle feels so much like modern fiction, down to Overbury's book becoming a bestseller--like something I'd read in a book like "[b:Gone Girl|19288043|Gone Girl|Gillian Flynn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1397056917s/19288043.jpg|13306276]" or "[b:Swamplandia!|8584686|Swamplandia!|Karen Russell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320536498s/8584686.jpg|13438215]".

291) Overbury is as hard to kill as Rasputin. IRAWBAT. Also, Anne Turner and Gervase Elwes - IRAWBAT.

296) It may have been the weight of accumulate strain and guilt over Overbury, or just the discovery in the Tower's cramped confines that a little love goes a very long way, but soon the earl and countess discovered that they could not stand each other. The silence of the Bloody Tower was split by screaming rows, and before long the pair were cohabiting no more.
Except for the fact that this is real and someone died...it's kind of funny. Talk about getting your comeuppance.

309) Queen Isabella, "the She-wolf of France" - IRAWBAT.

317) John Oldcastle, somehow the inspiration for Falstaff despite the fact that their only similarity is that they were both friends with King Henry V - IRAWBAT.

323) Nicholas Owen, diminutive architect of ingenious priest holes - IRAWBAT. Also, I finally know why they're called priest holes.

354) Lady Nithsdale, possessor of a wicked awesome name and heaps of nerve, and escape planner extraordinaire - IRAWBAT.

380) Great Fire of London -A.K.A. that time the Tower managed to not blow up in part because surrounding houses were blown up before the fire could reach them - IRAWBAT.

408) Strongly suspect that the botched beheading of the Duke of Monmouth inspired Nearly Headless Nick. "Only" five blows and a saw with a kitchen knife, but horribly painful to think about.

Somewhere in there I read that William Penn was held at the Tower before eventually being bailed out, at which point he went off the found Pennsylvania. Fun fact!

417) The radical MP John Wilkes, though spectacularly ugly, with cross eyes, snaggle teeth and a massive jaw, was a successful ladies' man who boasted that he could talk away his look within minutes.
I am horridly fascinated. IRAWBAT
… (més)
 
Marcat
books-n-pickles | Hi ha 7 ressenyes més | Oct 29, 2021 |
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Tower of London. The subjects are not arranged in chronological order (which could be dry) but in topical order according to subject matter such as Great Escapes or the Menagerie and the Mint. Engrossing, engaging, and at times, disturbing.
 
Marcat
ShelleyAlberta | Hi ha 7 ressenyes més | Aug 2, 2018 |

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Estadístiques

Obres
8
També de
1
Membres
476
Popularitat
#51,804
Valoració
3.8
Ressenyes
13
ISBN
43
Llengües
1

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