In recent times it has been fashionable to disdain the reign of King Richard I. Serious historians apply differing standards to the history of Richard's reign than popular ones. This study clarifies his position and reign using modern analytical tools.

This ground-breaking and substantive new history considers Richard's reign from a perspective that is as much French as English. Viewing the king himself as a great military commander, it also shows him as a more competent administrator than previously acknowledged. Modern revisionist work allows the authors to correct many misconceptions about Richard's French possessions, and recent scholarship on his rival, Philip Augustus, permits examination of the formidable threat that the resurgent Capetian monarchy represented.