Joan of Arc: A History

Summary (from the publisher): Helen Castor tells afresh the gripping story of the peasant girl from Domremy who hears voices from God, leads the French army to victory, is burned at the stake for heresy, and eventually becomes a saint. But unlike the traditional narrative, a story already shaped by the knowledge of what Joan would become and told in hindsight, Castor's Joan of Arc: A History takes us back to fifteenth-century France and tells the story forward. Instead of an icon, she gives us a  living, breathing woman confronting the challenges of faith and doubt; a roaring girl who, in fighting the English, was also taking sides in a bloody civil war. We meet this extraordinary girl amid the tumultuous events of her extraordinary world where no one - not Joan herself, nor the people around her - princes, bishops, soldiers, or peasants, knew what would happen next.

 

Adding complexity, depth, and fresh insight into Joan's life, and placing her actions in the context of the larger political and religious conflicts of fifteenth-century France, Joan of Arc is history at its finest, and a surprising new portrait of this remarkable woman.

 

Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy from HarperCollins.

 

Although purporting to be a history of Joan of Arc, this book is instead a history of the political world of England and France beginning in 1415. This time period was characterized by both civil war within France and the encroaching English army. "The duke of Burgundy dominated the north and the east; the dauphin controlled the centre and the south; and all the while Henry of England - who, like his royal predecessors, already held Gascony in the south-west - continued his relentless advance across Normandy into the heart of the kingdom" (34).

 

Although a well written history that provided a good overview of the upheaval in Europe during this time period, I was disappointed in this book because I was specifically expecting a biography of Joan of Arc. However, next to no information is provided about her childhood, family, or origins. In terms of this history, her story begins when she appears as a political and military force. In fact, Joan does not appear in the book until nearly one hundred pages in and is executed well before the conclusion of the history. In other words, the title and book description is a bit of a misnomer.

 

Although this history is not what I believed it would be, it does provide an excellent analysis of the events taking place in England and France, as well as no-frill description of Joan's role in the course of history. Castor argues that "in gaining a saint, however, we have lost a human being" (245) and in this account, she seeks to leave aside the mystery and myth surrounding Joan and instead give an accurate depiction of events and of the young woman who felt called to raise an army against her king's enemies and was ultimately killed for daring to do so.

 

Stars: 3