Tower
An Epic History of the Tower of London
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4.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A dazzling history of the Tower of London, one of the world's busiest tourist attractions, and the people who populated it.
Castle, royal palace, prison, torture chamber, execution site, zoo, mint, home to the crown jewels, armory, record office, observatory, and the most visited tourist attraction in the UK: The Tower of London has been all these things and more. No building in Britain has been more intimately involved in the island's story than this mighty, brooding stronghold in the very heart of the capital, a place which has stood at the epicenter of dramatic, bloody and frequently cruel events for almost a thousand years.
Now historian Nigel Jones sets this dramatic story firmly in the context of national—and international—events. In a gripping account drawn from primary sources and lavishly illustrated with sixteen pages of stunning photographs, he captures the Tower in its many changing moods and its many diverse functions.
Here, for the first time, is a thematic portrayal of the Tower of london not just as an ancient structure, but as a living symbol of the nation of Great Britain.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Built by William the Conqueror beginning in 1078 as a super-castle, the Tower of London has been variously the kingdom's primary palace, a prison and execution site, a zoo, the Royal Mint, and home to the crown jewels. Henry III expanded and transformed the Tower into an opulent palace, and by the end of Edward I's reign in 1307, it had assumed today's outlines, with 20 towers and a 100-foot-wide moat. At the Tower, captured foreign kings were pampered prisoners; Richard II's mother was nearly raped by a drunken army of rebellious peasants; and candidate knights in Henry IV's new Order of the Bath took actual baths in the Tower as part of the ceremonies. Edward IV gorged on food and mistresses while his predecessor and prisoner, Henry VI, lived a harsh existence only a couple of walls away. The Tower was the site of the execution of two wives of Henry VIII and Mary Tudor's nemesis, Jane Grey,; and briefly the prison of Nazi chief Rudolf Hess. Jones (Rupert Brooke) provides more than the history of an famous tourist site, creating a marvelous, authoritative, and entertaining history of England, tightly focused and richly detailed. 8 pages of b&w photos, 1 map.
Customer Reviews
Fascinating
This is one of those books that you can't put down once you start reading it.