Joan of Arc: A History - Softcover

Castor, Fellow And Lecturer In History Helen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062384406 ISBN 13: 9780062384409

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2016

Synopsis

From the author of the acclaimed She-Wolves, the complex, surprising, and engaging story of one of the most remarkable women of the medieval world--as never told before.

Helen Castor tells afresh the gripping story of the peasant girl from Domremy who hears voices from God, leads the French army to victory, is burned at the stake for heresy, and eventually becomes a saint. But unlike the traditional narrative, a story already shaped by the knowledge of what Joan would become and told in hindsight, Castor's Joan of Arc: A History takes us back to fifteenth century France and tells the story forwards. Instead of an icon, she gives us a living, breathing woman confronting the challenges of faith and doubt, a roaring girl who, in fighting the English, was also taking sides in a bloody civil war. We meet this extraordinary girl amid the tumultuous events of her extraordinary world where no one--not Joan herself, nor the people around her--princes, bishops, soldiers, or peasants--knew what would happen next.

Adding complexity, depth, and fresh insight into Joan's life, and placing her actions in the context of the larger political and religious conflicts of fifteenth century France, Joan of Arc: A History is history at its finest and a surprising new portrait of this remarkable woman.

Joan of Arc: A History features an 8-page color insert.

About this title

Review:

"Excellent ... perhaps Castor's greatest achievement is to remind us of just how extraordinary Joan was. "--Literary Review

"Enlightening ... [an] elegant and vivid account."--The Times (London)

"With the meticulous scholarship that she revealed in SHE-WOLVES, and in the same captivating manner, Helen Castor presents us with a very compelling analysis."--Trevor James, Historical Association / The Historian

"Gripping...Written to the impeccable standards of her award-winning bestseller, SHE-WOLVES, Castor's meticulous untangling of six centuries' worth of incredibly complex and contradictory detail into elegant prose is a thing of wonder...Castor doesn't make history fun or cool in JOAN OF ARC. She makes it shockingly, poignantly, irresistibly real."--BookReporter

"[An] illuminating new biography... a clear and elegant account ."--Times Higher Education, Book of the Week

"A book that shows vividly what Joan meant to those in her own time, politically and militarily...fascinating"--The New Yorker

"A triumph - brings the real Joan and her time to dramatic, moving and brilliant life."--Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets, New York Times bestseller

"In Castor's hands [Joan's] voice comes across in a truly vibrant way that illuminates her personality as few others have managed...eye-opening, engaging, and overall, excellent non-fiction...Castor's outstanding ability to convey the important events and people that made up the political landscape make this one a winner."--BookBrowse

"Castor creates a strong introduction to the courageous girl who swore she heard saints' voices, but also to the nation-rending struggle for power so fiercely waged that only that singular, obsessive teenager could finally save France...Recreates the heady atmosphere of the period."--Publishers Weekly

"Convincing and gripping...a highly satisfying biography...Castor's great coup is in framing this biography within another context...it puts the women back into the story...Castor's book is an important way of returning Joan's 'star' to the realm where it belongs, the human one."--Amanda Foreman, New York Times Book Review

From the Back Cover:

Helen Castor brings us afresh a riveting life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman, a roaring girl fighting the English and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing apart fifteenth-century France.

Here is a portrait of a nineteen-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior, leading an army to victory in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth that began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the savior of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who, five hundred years later, would be declared a saint.

Adding complexity, depth, and fresh insight into Joan's life, showing her confronting the challenges of faith and doubt in a superstitious age, Castor's Joan of Arc is a rich history and biography that allows us to better understand this remarkable woman and her world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0062384406
• ISBN 13: 9780062384409
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376