Preview Medieval Intrigue: Decoding Royal Conspiracies
I'm excited to announce Medieval Intrigue on this blog as I truly feel that this is a fantastic piece of work to have on the History list because of some of the questions it raises about history in general. Ian Mortimer is a historian known for doing things a little bit differently (just one example being the book he is best known for: The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England) and this time he's tempting controversy by asking whether any of 'history' can actually ever be 'more than a matter of opinion?' Which of course would mean our long-established ideas about history may in fact be incorrect...
In this latest book, Ian uses some of the big debates in medieval history (such as, was Edward II really murdered at Berkely castle?) and asks broader questions about the nature of historical evidence and analysis. He proposes that we should be using an information-based method when judging history that would allow both historical doubts and facts to be questioned and to fix points that limit the infinite amount of possible new explanations about the past.
What we are left with is:
If Ian is right, we could finally have a means to obtain true, undisputable history.
If Ian is wrong, the implication is that we can't be certain about any specific aspect of the past.
I hope that's left you feeling curious and wanting to check out the preview! The book itself publishes in about 2 weeks' time in the UK.
Carly
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