Castles have long occupied a singular place in the human imagination. In Castles: A Fortified History of the World, British historian and journalist Dan Jones, host of the documentary series Secrets of Great British Castles, brings impressive breadth and depth to the project of explaining the role these structures have played in shaping events across more than three millennia and the reasons they continue to be such sources of fascination.
Jones (The Plantagenets) begins his account with the fall of Troy, sometime near the end of the 12th century B.C.E. Apart from the real-life Troy's "vital place in the history of fortifications," Jones argues, its story has become iconic "because of the web of fantasy, legend, and half-truth that has been spun around it over hundreds of years," making it one "meant to be enjoyed as myth as well as history. The same is true to some degree of every castle in this book."
Adopting a "broad view on what a castle was--and is," Jones leads readers on a highly personal tour of the history of these structures that spans large portions of the globe. He devotes considerable attention to the castles of Western Europe in the Middle Ages (his area of specialty), beginning with the Iron Age hill forts of the British Isles and concluding with American castles, including one fantasy edifice--Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. He also surveys the shifting positions castles have occupied throughout the ages in military, political, and cultural terms.
For that reason, Castles is more interesting and certainly more entertaining than an account focused purely on the evolution of the technology of fortifications, although Jones doesn't omit pertinent detail about walls, towers, and moats where appropriate. Instead, the chapter on chivalric castles, for example--what he calls "temples to a group consciousness"--offers insights into the "hopes, fears, ambitions, and dreams of an entire social class." Similarly, his discussion of samurai castles provides a glimpse of the culture that played such a central role in Japanese life for hundreds of years.
Whether he is profiling King Ludwig II and his Neuschwanstein Castle in 19th-century Bavaria, or describing the roles Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo played in the design and construction of fortifications in Renaissance Italy, Jones has the ability to make his work ultimately about people, not merely buildings. He provides copious endnotes and an extensive bibliography for anyone who wants to pursue this subject in more depth, but even those with only a casual interest in the topic will find the journey he leads them on instructive and above all enjoyable. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: Dan Jones takes readers on a trip that spans the globe and more than 3,000 years to explore the roles castles have played in shaping human history.