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megwrites
Title: Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England
Author: Juliet Barker (JulietBarker.co.uk)
Genre: European History/Non-Fiction
Page Count: 464
Publisher: LIttle Brown and Company
Basic
The Positives: What I most appreciated about this book is the clean narrative and chronological flow that organized the book. Barker does a competent job of reconsidering Agincourt, a battle that became not only legend in it's own time but part of the English identity and much recalled to stir up feelings of nationalism and heroism. The detailed but streamlined account she gives doesn't go to extremes, but rather posits that Agincourt was as much a French loss as an English victory - meaning that French failures were as much a part as English valor, indeed, many times more so.
Overall, a well written history that uses the space it takes up well to tell the entire story of Agincourt, including how it came to be and what it meant.
The portrait painted of Henry V is well done here, and gives what I feel is a balanced account of the man who could be both ruthless and extremely idealistic and high minded. For instance, when Barker speaks about the killing of captive French knights out of practical concerns on the battlefield, she shows that while this definitely went again the rules of honor and chivalry, and even our own modern notions of not executing prisoners of war who have peacefully surrendered and are obeying their captors according to agreed upon laws or precedents - she shows that chivalry - like everything else - can and does go out the window when there's a war on and Henry V may have acted ruthlessly, but he acted ruthlessly to prevent loss of life on the English side and that it does fit in with his character that as someone who believed he was fighting for his God-given right to hold the French crown and who had a duty to act in the best interest of the people fighting for him and under his command had to make a very brutal decision to execute French captives rather than either release them to the other side where they could well rejoin the fight or carry them along, continuing his chivalric duty to feed, clothe, and protect them when his own soldiers were obviously quite tired, hungry, and had already become worn by just getting to Agincourt.
The Negatives: Occasionally dry reading. The book also doesn't quite focus in or bring sharp detail to the main characters. While I realize that history is as much events and places as people, it does help to give context when the players in an event are more closely examined. The only character who gets the focus they deserve is Henry V. However, no king does things alone and it might have been helpful to get more detail and personality on his advisors, courtiers, and nobles.
CoC Score: 0/10. Somewhat good faith, since we're talking about a high level view of a war between two vastly and majority white European nations here. Not that there isn't always more room to bring out that people of color (or people who were not identified as white) have been apart of Europe's history, from the Italy to Russia to even the ancient kings of Scotland.
Gender Score: 4/10. Even though the times were one in which European women lived in a highly misogynistic, male-dominated, hierarchical culture, there's no reason not to include them or find ways to bring out their roles, especially before and after. Even in war, women are always there, even if they aren't the stars on the battlefield.
GLBT Score: 0/10. No mention of queer or trans people or issues.
Ablism Score: 0/10. Barker briefly mentions those who were injured or suffered from illness (chronic or short term), but only to mention it. No real discussion of people with disabilities or disability itself.
