The Two Hundred Years War

The Bloody Crowns of England and France, 1292–1492

By: Dr Michael Livingston

Narrated by: Rupert Farley

Bloomsbury presents The Two Hundred Years War by Michael Livingston, read by Rupert Farley.

A new and radically original account of the longest military conflict in European history, which challenges the conventional periodisation of the ‘Hundred Years War’ to consider a much longer period of Anglo-French conflict.

Michael Livingston argues that the English lens through which the war has been viewed has led historians to define it in terms of English interests (most famously, the claim of the English Plantagenet king Edward III to be the rightful king of France), and that the events collectively labelled the ‘Hundred Years War’ are best seen as a sequence of steps in France’s struggle to define itself as a nation. For much of the period, France’s primary rival was indeed England. But it was by no means the only combatant. Burgundy stood in its way, too, as did Brittany, Flanders, Navarre and other rival powers.

Viewing France as the primary engine driving the war leads Livingston to consider a much longer timespan, starting with the Anglo-French ‘Pirate War’ of 1292 (which swiftly escalated into a fight over England’s feudal possessions in Gascony) and ending with the marriage of Charles VIII of France to Anne of Brittany by which Brittany was subsumed into the French realm.

©2025 Dr Michael Livingston (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Fantastic history

Livingston makes medieval history come alive in this book. Read this if you want to better understand how two of humanity's iconic nations emerged from a very different world.

I have learned about the Hundred Years War several times, and I finally feel like it makes sense to me. The period has such dramatic changes of fortune between England and France, and Livingston contextualizes them in a way that feels much less random or driven solely by the actions of big men.

My biggest complaints are that it is hard to visualize the campaigns and battles in audio form and it can be pretty tough to keep track of the cast of characters. But I think he does a pretty good job given the limitations of the audiobook format. Also, the pacing of the passage of time is uneven, with the last few decades of the period flying by.

But on the whole, this was fantastic.