We're familiar with the names-- William the Conqueror, Richard Lionheart, Eleanor of Aquitaine-- but probably less so with the gripping stories of their never-ending confrontations with rivals at home and enemies abroad. It's this tangled history that Mary McAuliffe's aptly titled Clash of Crowns sets out to unravel. That she succeeds, splendidly, has to do with her uncanny ability to embed the myriad names and dates in a clearly developed narrative that features characters as fully fleshed out as those in any play. We care about most of the central figures who people the century and a half that McAuliffe describes, from William's Norman invasion of England in 1066 to the English loss of Normandy in 1204, because we understand their motives and psychology. Richard's untimely death, Eleanor's bad marriage, French King Philip's persistence, mean something to us and therefore we care about the battle that ends British control of Normandy, when Philip finally overruns Chateau-Gaillard, "the mightiest castle of its time." Along the way, McAuliffe, a Ph.D. historian, takes the time to fill us in on everything from castle engineering to the development of chess; from the role of women in the medieval era to the flowering of the troubadours and courtly love.

She is especially good on Richard Lionheart, who in some ways is the book's central character. His slaughter of prisoners, his sheer physical courage, his acumen as strategist are all on ample display, especially in McAuliffe's analysis of the Third Crusade and the battles for Acre and Arsuf. This background helps make the mayhem of the foreground (the book's subtitle is A Story of Bloodshed, Betrayal, and Revenge) more understandable and three-dimensional. Then, too, McAuliffe's prose is a wonderful instrument, her tone of voice down-to-earth and commonsensical, all in all, a pleasure to read.