NK - New book for library?

[Hugh Niewoehner]

> Subject: Book recommendation
> 
> My vassal, Sabine von Wettin, recommended a book to me, and I in turn am
> going to recommend it to you all:
> 
>     Heraldry : an introduction to a noble tradition
>     Michel Pastoureau.
>     New York : Harry N. Abrams, 1997.
>     Call Number         LCCN            Dewey Decimal   ISBN/ISSN
>     CR21 .P317 1997     96049756        929.6/094       0810928302
> 
> It's a very nice, short introductory book on heraldry.  PROFUSELY
> illustrated with period use of arms (and the back lists the date and source
> of each illustration).  Include general short chapters on 1, History of
> Arms, 2 The Language of Heraldry, 3 A Misunderstood Science.  Plus a series
> of short monographs, a glossary and index, and recommended further reading.
> 
> The short monographs are "Do historians fear the fleur-de-lis?", "The eagle
> and the lion in medieval arms", "A 14-th century case about the right to
> bear arms", "Heraldry in Britain", "Visitations", Shakespeare's coat of
> arms", "The suppression of 'signs of feudalism'", and "The japanese _mon_".
> 
> The truly wonderful thing about the book, is that Michel is not English: he
> is French, and a member of International bodies on heraldry.  As a result,
> his book does not have the usual bias that books written in English about
> the English College of Arms does.
> 
> He talks about armory on the continent, the access of the lower classes, the
> difference between various forms of continental heraldry.
> 
> I recommend it.
> 
>         Tibor