'An absorbing and eye-opening account of what the Plantagenets did for us.' - HELEN CASTOR 'Burt and Partington show precisely and engagingly why the Middle Ages matter.' - DAN JONES Between 1199 and 1399, English politics was high drama. These two centuries witnessed savage political blood-letting - including civil war, deposition, the murder of kings and the ruthless execution of rebel lords - as well as international warfare, devastating national pandemic, economic crisis and the first major peasant uprising in English history. Arise, England uses the six Plantagenet kings who ruled during these two centuries to explore England's emergent statehood. Drawing on original accounts and arresting new research, it draws resonances between government, international relations, and the abilities, egos and ambitions of political actors, then and now. Colourful and complicated, and by turns impressive and hateful, the six kings stride through the story; but arguably the greatest character is the emerging English state itself.

The dramatic and shocking events of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 are to be the backdrop to Juliet Barker's latest book: a snapshot of what everyday life was like for ordinary people living in the middle ages. The same highly successful techniques she deployed inAgincourt and Conquest will this time be brought to bear on civilian society, from the humblest serf forced to provide slave-labour for his master in the fields, to the prosperous country goodwife brewing, cooking and spinning her distaff and the ambitious burgess expanding his business and his mental horizons in the town. The book will explore how and why such a diverse and unlikely group of ordinary men and women from every corner of England united in armed rebellion against church and state to demand a radical political agenda which, had it been implemented, would have fundamentally transformed English society and anticipated the French Revolution by four hundred years. The book will not only provide an important reassessment of the revolt itself but will also be an illuminating and original study of English medieval life at the time.