The devil's crown Book

I am tempted to call this a good introductory book for those interested in the Angevin kings of England, but I fear I am too well-acquainted with their story to know if that is a fair statement. Instead, I will say that it is a competently constructed whirlwind of a book. What Barber does, is provide an admirably even-handed and condensed version of the lives of Henry II, Henry the Young King, Richard, and John. Very condensed in fact, since the entire thing is less than two hundred pages. By bringing it down to such a short length, it could easily feel like he is lobbing event after event and name after name at the reader. That said, as means for me to refresh myself quickly on some of the events, it definitely served its purpose.

This book was composed as a companion to a BBC Documentary, and as such it is written in language for a popular reader. However, because of this it contains one of my greatest peeves in history books: an extreme lack of footnotes and end notes- there are literally none. A small further reading list is provided, but that does not tell you where any of his specific information was found, and I do wish that detailed (or even minimal!) specific source citations were provided.