arachan 's review for:

The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I's Dream by Charles Spencer

4.0

dark emotional informative slow-paced

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This is a solid history book, written for a non-academic audience but still engaging and informative.  The book is divided into three sections; Henry I's life up to the disaster:  a close examination of what happened, as much as possible: the aftermath and the succession crisis that destroyed Henry's legacy within months of his death.  I'm mostly familiar with this time period through the Brother Cadfael historical fiction series which has a pro-Stephen slant so it was interesting to see how well Maud actually did and how her husband might have been the major factor behind Stephen's opportunity to seize the throne.  

I wasn't blown away by this book but I enjoyed reading it and it was very informative read.  Solid.