John Watts is Professor of Later Medieval History at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. He is the author of several books and articles on the politics and political culture of later medieval England and Europe, including Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (1996), and The Making of Polities: Europe, 1300–1500 (2009).

• Acknowledgements and Note on Text; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. The civil wars we think we know: narrativity and politics; 2. Reform and the common weal; 3. Logics of political division; 4. Political economy and civil conflict; 5. Geographies of contention; Conclusion; Maps; The royal family tree Dramatis Personae; Chronology of the wars; Bibliography; Index.

'A brilliant, fascinating and profoundly thought-provoking analysis. The new light John Watts sheds on the Wars of the Roses from comparative and structural perspectives will shape debate about the fifteenth century for a long time to come.' Helen Castor, author of The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV