Plantagenets (Jones)

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
Dan Jones, 2012 (Rev. ed., 2014)
Penguin Group (USA)
560 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143124924


Summary
The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem.

In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world. We meet the captivating Eleanor of Aquitaine, twice queen and the most famous woman in Christendom; her son, Richard the Lionheart, who fought Saladin in the Third Crusade; and King John, a tyrant who was forced to sign Magna Carta, which formed the basis of our own Bill of Rights.

This is the era of chivalry, of Robin Hood and the Knights Templar, the Black Death, the founding of Parliament, the Black Prince, and the Hundred Year’s War. It will appeal as much to readers of Tudor history as to fans of Game of Thrones. (From the publisher.)

The Plantagenets has been adapted as a 2014 BBC documentary series. Jones's followup book, The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors, was published in 2014.