Joan of Arc — Helen Castor

Castor examines Joan of Arc through the records of her two trials — the condemnation of 1431 and the rehabilitation of 1456 — and through the political context of the Hundred Years War that shaped both. The book is less interested in whether Joan's voices were real than in what the question meant in a society that took seriously the possibility that they were, and in how those voices gave her an authority that the politics of the day simultaneously required and could not accommodate. The result is a biography that treats its subject as a political actor in a specific historical moment rather than a symbol available for any cause.

'A magnificent biography — written with precision, elegance, and genuine historical imagination.' — Hilary Mantel. 'Castor restores Joan to the complexity she deserves.' — The Guardian