The Tudors : the complete story of England's most notorious dynasty

by G. J. Meyer

Paper Book, 2010

Status

Available

Call number

942.05

Genres

Publication

New York : Delacorte Press, c2010.

Description

Meyer's fresh storytelling ability breathes new life into the history of the Tudor family and Tudor England's precarious place in world politics, the critical role religion played in government, and the blossoming of English theater and literature.

User reviews

LibraryThing member mikewick

I picked up on this because after reading Mantell's Wolf Hall I had to get a background on the mayhem wreaked during the reign of Henry VIII. After finishing this book last night, the first thing I said to my wife was "I would never have wanted to have lived in England back then!" Not having read

any history of the Tudors before I'm not sure how Meyer's work stacks up to theirs but I would highly suspect that his paints a much less rosy picture than do most previous histories and biographies of the times & characters encapsulated in his work. It's a fantastically told tale--Meyer's set up of one chapter explaining the events and the next providing background on specific personalities, events, ideas, etc. was a fantastic way to write their history.

And what a history it was . . . it seems like there was no way possible to live a contented life back then. If you weren't a noble, you were a dirt poor peasant. If you were a noble you would have to parlay in the highly dangerous world of court intrigues, which led to many an early downfall. If you were a Catholic you were persecuted; if you were a Protestant Queen Mary came along and demanded you revert to Catholicism. If you didn't strike the right balance between Catholic sacraments and Protestant ethics Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth would have your head (and guts and genitals) for it. And we're not even talking about continental European politics. But Meyer makes it all easily accessible--and skimps on some of the history here and there--but he does it all so that you come away having learned something rather than having history dumped in your lap, waiting for you to make sense of it.

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LibraryThing member ClifSven

I agree with most of almiratodd’s review. The book should have been titled “Henry VIII – The [insert your favorite epithet] and his tyrant bastard-child, Elizabeth”. The majority of the book deals with Henry VIII who is portrayed as being the worst ruler in the history of England, with

Elizabeth I coming in a very close second. Catherine of Aragon and her daughter, Mary (Bloody Mary) are treated very sympathetically, leaving the impression (incorrectly in my opinion) that both were saintly in their respective lives. Meyer actively disagrees with the majority of texts dealing with the same subject(s). Henry VII and Edward VI are only minor characters appearing only to contrast just how abominably Henry VIII and Elizabeth I reigned. The book is excessively inflated with anti-Catholic rhetoric, which diminishes the scholarship of the work. It also does not deliver on its title - "The Tudors: The Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty" as it is not a complete history of three of the five Tudors in said dynasty.

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LibraryThing member mallinje

This book is more about the religious reformation than actually about the Tudors.

LibraryThing member Angelic55blonde

This book covered the Tudor dynasty. Because of this, the author could not go into too much depth of any of the monarchs but I feel that the author did focus most of his time on the two more popular ones, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. This book provides you with a good overview of each reign and how

they all tied together. This author did provide a more sympathetic view on Mary's reign and a harsher view of Elizabeth, which I was not expecting. G. J. Meyer did not provide as a rosy review on the Tudors as other historians have in the past.

I think this is a great book for anyone wanting to read a full history of the Tudors and not just a biography on one of the monarchs. It pulls everything together and provides a good history of the Tudors.

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LibraryThing member Clara53

The Tudor dynasty comes to life in this well-written, exhaustive, thorough account of the English royal court at that period in history. I had some apprehension starting this book - for often this sort of historical works can be dry, entangled, and, dare I say, boring. I was pleasantly surprised

however: it was engaging, interesting, believable, and quite objective.

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LibraryThing member booksbooks11

Anyone enjoying The Tudors on tv will love this as a background to the history they don't cover. Also intereting to see how much of the series is embelisment and how much is history.

LibraryThing member Janine2011

I really enjoyed this book. Although I already knew most of the information in it, it did show Elizabeth in a way most other books do not. It was brutally honest about the society that ordinary people lived in under her reign. It wasn't. as later generations (the Victorians) claimed a golden era.

The ordinary people suffered badly, particularly in the last years of her long reign. It was only in later years that she was glorified as Gloriana. MOst people at the end of her reign were glad to see her gone.

The book took me quite a long time to read as it is fairly big but I really enjoyed the flow of the words. It is an easy book to read. It doesn't overwhelm you with just facts and statistics, it goes into some details about how ordinary people lived at the time. I loved the little side sections that went into detail about the church and other subjects.

This book won't please anyone who romanticizes about the golden age of Elizabeth. That age never really existed.

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LibraryThing member marshapetry

Great book but it was hard to listen to; I think reading it would have been better. It's too hard to keep all those british titles worked out.

LibraryThing member wagner.sarah35

This history of the most famous royal family has a decidedly realistic tone, especially when dealing with the reign of Elizabeth. However, Henry VIII dominates much of this book, although one must credit the author with focusing on Henry's politics and religious reformation instead of his six

wives. Indeed, the focus allows one to truly appreciate the extent of the English break with Rome and what it meant for the monarchy. In addition, brief background notes interspersed throughout fill in details that might otherwise be lost in such a vast history, such as the English theater and food. A good broad history of the Tudors, although I did feel the author was a bit harsh towards Elizabeth, the last Tudor monarch.

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LibraryThing member alexumacob

The Tudors by GJ Meyer is one complete book about the Tudors. It is well researched and the chapters are arranged in a way that that there is a background about what happens next in the proceeding chapters. It also gives a background of the era as to situate the events and course of the time. For

those who are looking for comprehensive read on the Tudors this is a must read book. It is best read as a starting monograph on the Tudors before one reads King Henry VIII his children and the era that they live.

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LibraryThing member zen_923

Author has good writing style that makes the story easy to follow. But the magnitude of the time period covered means there are lots of names introduced and the story moves too fast at times

LibraryThing member Stbalbach

This is the first book I've read about the Tudors and even though I consider myself somewhat educated, my image of the Tudors has been surprisingly shaped by popular culture. I thought Henry VIII was a larger than life great king whose main problem was too many wives, and that the Elizabethian era

a high point in English history. Turns out I've been duped by propaganda as old as the 16th century itself. The Tudors were awful for England and their self-aggrandizement has fooled generations of historians even up to the present. There is now a revisionism occurring in Tudor studies and how far the scales weigh to the other side remains to be seen. Overall, this book describes the Tudors as second-rate rulers, lacking in humanity and compassion, cold-blooded killers and otherwise unpleasant people. Meyer's says England had many stronger and better kings in the Plantagenets but Tudor image-making overshadowed them. G. J. Meyer has been accused of "bias" but that might be true if he took a position in the contemporary debates (eg. if he was pro-Catholic), but a history that re-evaluates the record is historical revisionism, a necessary process of cutting through the propaganda and finding the truth.

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