Bring the Middle Ages back to life with this sumptuous, action-packed tie-in book to Dan Snow's new TV series on castles. Follow the building of these epic structures and the bloody weapons used to defeat them from Edward I's castles in North Wales, to Richard the Lionheart's glittering fortress in Normandy and many more. Much of the landscape around us is marked by its violent past. Thousands of castles remain in every corner of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. From the mouth of Lough Foyle in the north of Ireland, to the Alborz Mountains of Iran, castles or their ruins still dominate the landscape and our imaginations. Their massive walls have survived the assaults of both the human and natural worlds, from trebuchets to earthquakes. They are a constant reminder to us today of a time when violence, or the threat of it, was the norm. Each chapter focuses on one of the world's greatest surviving castles: Dover Castle, 'the Key to England' and King John's first line of defence against the French Dauphin; Ch'teau Gaillard, Richard I's fortress in Normandy (whose only chink in its armaments was through the latrines); Castillo de Gibalfaro, the last vanguard of Moorish rule in Southern Spain; Malbork Castle, headquarters of the evangelical and entrepreneurial Teutonic Knights in Poland; Edward I's network of castles in Wales, with its heart at Conwy, built to suppress the rebellious Welsh princes; and Krak des Chevaliers in Syria an astounding feat of engineering by the Crusaders, which only fell to Sultan Baibars by the subterfuge of a forged letter.

Each castle's story is intricately recounted the building, how it felt like to live in and crucially how well it stood up to the test of siege warfare and battle. All of these castles were tested in battle with different results. Spanning Europe and the Middle East, and using the latest CGI imaging to show how they were constructed, the technology used to defend them and the weaponry that defeated them, Dan Snow gets to the very heart of the bloodshed and battles of the greatest fortresses of the Middle Ages. Dan Snow is the face of BBC history. Highly promotable, he is an excellent writer as well as broadcaster. This title will combine terrific history with whizz-bang CGI. TV series is an international, lavish production co-made with History TV in Canada, with worldwide distribution. Dan's BBC2 history shows usually average 23 million viewers.

Dan's BBC1 shows are seen by audiences averaging around 45 million.