Sunday, July 19, 2009

Question from Brittany Ann - Opinions on two Tudor books

I picked up two Tudor-related books at a used bookshop this week, and would like to know some opinions on them...

"A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard" by Lacey Baldwin Smith

"Tudor History and the Historians" by F. Smith Fussner

How accurate should I expect them to be?

Thanks,
Brittany Ann

1 comment:

PhD Historian said...

Lacey Baldwin Smith was a Professor of History at Princeton, MIT, and Northwestern University. He has won many pretigious awards for is work. Both he and his work are very well respected by the academic community. That said, much of his work is now quite dated. The facts and narrative will be very trustworthy, but the interpretations might be a bit out of date, especially in his biographies involving female subjects.

The Fussner book deals more with theory and its application ... how historians research, interpret, and write Tudor history ... and is extremely out dated.