Half way through, I wasn't sure I could finish. I was disappointed there was not more about the Roanoke Island story, but now realized he was hardly involved. Once he was 'dead' and put in the Tower, the story actually improved, as far as readability was concerned. This is a book for those seriously interested in the subject, Sir Walter Raleigh. I learned much that I didn't know, and was fairly satisfied by the end. That seems to be a positive. ( )

Sir Walter Raleigh, a poet, an adventurer, a soldier, is one of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan golden age. I assume that's mostly because he was such a gifted writer, while other notable figures left behind much less prolific written records.

Ms. Beer clearly finds Sir Walter an irresistible figure. She finds intrigue, wonder and excitement where I did not.

I fault myself.

I picked up a review copy of the book from the publisher to learn more. I think the writer assumes the reader knows a bit about Sir Walter and the history of the times. I knew very little, but after reading, feel like I know a lot more about the era.

But I don't find Raleigh any more compelling than I did before reading the book. ( )

Sir Walter Raleigh (author's chosen spelling) is a complex figures and Beer choses to showcase his many facets). While she introduces the book with his death, the first several chapters each focus on an aspect of his life -- soldier, colonizer, lover, writer, etc. All these many parts created the man who rose so high and fell so far. The second part of the book is more traditional chronology of his life as his political mistakes take him from favorite of Elizabeth I to enemy of James I, prison, and execution. Then book is well researched and quite readable. The questions of the title "Patriot or Traitor" is left as an exercise to the reader.

This book deserves a wide audience. If you are interested in history this book should enlarge your understanding of the Elizabethan period. If you enjoy historical fiction, this book is so well written that you may need to be reminded that this stays closely to documented facts.

In modern times, we remain fascinated with Elizabeth I. How did she keep so much power as a single woman? How did she maintain that power for so long even with the challenge of Mary, Queen of Scots?

There are many historical works about Elizabeth and historical fiction and romances abound. One way to get a better understanding is looking at the period through the lens of another closely related figure.

This certainly brings Sir Walter Raleigh to the forefront. We love to be along for an adventure of a rags to riches story. Although Raleigh was certainly not from rags, he did climb to the top of a dangerous mountain of royalty and then fell violently to a dramatic end. That is a description of a model for the modern reader. Indeed, the subtitle "Life and Death" is reversed when the book grabs your attention with the death of Raleigh.

It reads like a Hillary Mantel historical fiction but is very cautious to remain consciously disciplined to the expectations of a documented history book.
I am adding this note. I just saw that this book is the cover story on the new Dec. 2018 edition of the BBC History magazne! ( )

I'm writing this review with mixed feelings, not because I can't make up my mind if this book is good or not, it is in fact quite good. Instead the contents of this work of descriptive history needs to be evaluated against modern approaches to teaching history. I'm going to try to explain what I mean by that.

When you're writing a novel you want to begin with a bang, you want to make the reader interested. It's a modern approach to fiction writing we can trace back to Goethe and his short novel: The Suffering of Young Werther. That novel starts with: I'm so glad I don't ever have to be here again. It puts you right in the scene and sets up the mood of everything that follows. Later on novelists and especially screenwriters have picked this up and refined it to an art. E.g. if you can't engage a movie audience in the first 10 minutes you've lost them.

In this book about Sir Walter Ralegh, by Anna Beer, the same approach is used. We immediately learn in graphic detail how the protagonist meets his ending. So the question is: does the effect of starting with a bang work for non-fiction as well? I think it does, even though I don't like that it does. Chances are I'm too old and set in my ways to appreciate what this format can do for learning about historical facts, but it felt too forced, too on the nose. It does work though, it does get you engaged and connected to a human being who lived a very long time ago in a period where daily life was a lot more brutal to say the least.

Ironically the author goes against the 'novel' approach of the book by adding lots of detail that gets in the way and doesn't add to our knowledge of who this person Ralegh was. This could easily have been fixed by using footnotes and end notes. Providing a listing of names who were involved in certain event in Ralegh's life, although historically relevant, gets in the way of following the narrative. At some point you simply read over it because trying to remember all those names simply doesn't work and doesn't help.

Overall I appreciated the human aspects and approach. This otherwise abstract from long ago became a crisp clear individual in my mind. As such I think some of the extrapolations and interpretations the author makes are fully warranted. More so because they are noted and indicated.

We're living in an age where the skill of writing is applied to otherwise dry subjects like history. I wish all high school history books were written in the same style and manner as this biography. ( )