Burgundy is a red wine. Burgundy is a dark red color. Burgundy is a former administrative region in France. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a 2004 comedy film. But who were the historic Burgundians?
Our core book, The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire, is the story of a thousand years, a compulsively readable narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury, and madness. It is about the decline of knightly ideals and the awakening of individualism and cities, the struggle for dominance in the heart of northern Europe, bloody military campaigns and fatally bad marriages. It's kind of a Game of Thrones but without the dragons because it really happened.
At the end of the 15th century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom during the Hundred Years' War in the Middle Ages. It was Burgundian troops who captured Joan of Arc and turned her over to the English for trial and execution. This region became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands.
Our core book also traces the remarkable cultural history of great art and architecture and music which emerged despite the violence and the chaos of the tension between rival dynasties.
Rightly compared to great narrative histories written by authors like Barbara Tuchman, this work has been described as a popular and scholarly masterpiece. It has been praised in many reviews such as the following:
"A sumptuous feast of a book" The Times, Books of the Year
"Thrillingly colorful and entertaining" Sunday Times
"A history book that reads like a thriller" Le Soir.
