Yes, this history book certainly does suffer for covering so many centuries of action in highly pictorial form in just a couple of hundred pages, but this is for the people who need the bare bones and not the forensics. Henry 2, Richard the Lionheart (and this kind of bodges his bodged return to England, it has to be said), bad John, Henry 3 – all are just the start of this look at the Plantagenet line. If you do need to know how vicious Simon de Montfort got to get his name on an ex-polytechnic, then here is all the average reader would care to learn. If you are ignorant of the chumminess between Teddy 2 and Gaviscon, especially at the coronation of Teddy with his child bride, then it’s here. If you need any nuance and doubt about the Princes in the Tower, then look elsewhere.

This is light history, and as such it is not the kind of book I associate with this publisher. That said, the picture research is definitely of their usual standard. It’s the kind of book you go through twice – once on the text, the other for the captions and box-outs. That said, it is very easy here to learn a little about a lot, and if that is your approach to history this is highly pictorial, pithy and precise. I still think my expectations were not quite met, and its little hiccups and biases kind of nudged me down to three stars for this. If this is intended as revision for University Challenge it will fall short; many another basic quiz show and it may well find its place.

This is a brilliant book. I love learning about history and what is a more interesting time than fighting British Kings falling out with different countries and plenty of controversy. This book contains everything you need to know about the plantagenet era and the problems they cause England. The information was delivered so well making it easy to follow and take in. Its so very interesting and I learnt so much from reading it. I loved all the historic pictures that accompanied the text. The most interesting and rememberal section was the one looking at the Knight fights where the rule were not to hurt or kill anyone. Well they didn't always listen and often the innocent watchers were often trampled. And the countryside was often left a mess. The layout worked really well with the brilliant mix of text to pictures as it went through the different Kings and notable figures, events seamlessly. I definitely recommend this book to all history fans. 

So much praise goes out to the author and publishers for creating this brilliant and interesting book.

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog today https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/the-plantagenets-by-ben-hubbard-amber-books-4-stars either under my name or ladyreading365

A good solid historical account of one of England's most colourful royal dynasties.. Henrys, Edwards and Richards, The Black Death, The Hundred Years' War: all are included here.

Even if some of the kings/queens belonging to the Plantagenets family are famous this is an informative and well written story about this dinasty.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

detailed history looking the Plantagenet Dynasty from Henry II to Richard III a family whom through in fighting died out but overall its interesting and lets the reader look at this period of English history.