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Prince Dracula: The Bloody Legacy of Vlad the Impaler
A war hero, a mass murderer and a Gothic legend the world has never forgotten
Vlad the Impaler is one of history’s most compelling and brutal characters, with a bizarre afterlife as a cult horror sensation. A hero to his countrymen, Vlad Dracula is a byword for dread. Not just for generations of Western fans of Gothic fiction and film, but also for an appalled and fascinated 15th-century readership, for whom contemporary accounts of Dracula’s atrocities became the world’s first horror bestsellers.
Combining historical research and dramatic reconstruction with contemporary reference, here is Vlad the Impaler’s dramatic career, from pampered captive of the Ottoman Sultans to exterminating angel of Christian vengeance. But in reality, was he the embodiment of unbridled cruelty or model ruler of an embattled realm?
Prince Dracula also examines the role of psychological warfare and black propaganda in international politics, from the medieval torture chamber to the headlines of the modern age, and shows Vlad as an unwitting pioneer of the modern world.
Plying a grisly course through medieval bloodbaths and contemporary horrors, Gavin Baddeley and Paul Woods leave no tombstone unturned in this extraordinary history.
Vlad the Impaler is one of history’s most compelling and brutal characters, with a bizarre afterlife as a cult horror sensation. A hero to his countrymen, Vlad Dracula is a byword for dread. Not just for generations of Western fans of Gothic fiction and film, but also for an appalled and fascinated 15th-century readership, for whom contemporary accounts of Dracula’s atrocities became the world’s first horror bestsellers.
Combining historical research and dramatic reconstruction with contemporary reference, here is Vlad the Impaler’s dramatic career, from pampered captive of the Ottoman Sultans to exterminating angel of Christian vengeance. But in reality, was he the embodiment of unbridled cruelty or model ruler of an embattled realm?
Prince Dracula also examines the role of psychological warfare and black propaganda in international politics, from the medieval torture chamber to the headlines of the modern age, and shows Vlad as an unwitting pioneer of the modern world.
Plying a grisly course through medieval bloodbaths and contemporary horrors, Gavin Baddeley and Paul Woods leave no tombstone unturned in this extraordinary history.
390 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 2022
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June 7, 2023Irritatingly, there is a fascinating story to be told here. The bloody history of Romania, for so long standing between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman one. Medieval infighting and politics and side-switching and Crusades and crucial battles that don't usually get covered because British historians are banging on about Agincourt again. Plus, the whole Dracula (book) thing, plus Romania's recent history. What I read of all that was really interesting.
Unfortunately, someone decided to let some sort of aspiring horror novelist write fictional interludes of extreme brutality, depicting people being impaled, blinded etc in loving detail and at length, which are then included between chapters, presumably in order to help anyone sitting on the fence about whether being horribly mutilated was fun. I mean: no, and also: what.
Also unfortunate is the outstandingly uncomfortable and lengthy discussion on the supposed Turkish/Ottoman habit of penetrative male/male sex (TE Lawrence makes it in, you may be amazed to hear) with much concentration on rape, and speculation on who may have been raped, and frankly fairly squinky attitudes.
I felt I was learning something in the actual history bits but it's feeling distinctly sticky, with an awful lot more close-up dwelling on traumatic violence than I expected in a history of Vlad the Impaler. I am off-put.
Unfortunately, someone decided to let some sort of aspiring horror novelist write fictional interludes of extreme brutality, depicting people being impaled, blinded etc in loving detail and at length, which are then included between chapters, presumably in order to help anyone sitting on the fence about whether being horribly mutilated was fun. I mean: no, and also: what.
Also unfortunate is the outstandingly uncomfortable and lengthy discussion on the supposed Turkish/Ottoman habit of penetrative male/male sex (TE Lawrence makes it in, you may be amazed to hear) with much concentration on rape, and speculation on who may have been raped, and frankly fairly squinky attitudes.
I felt I was learning something in the actual history bits but it's feeling distinctly sticky, with an awful lot more close-up dwelling on traumatic violence than I expected in a history of Vlad the Impaler. I am off-put.
August 18, 2023
This is a book that never makes up its mind as to what it is trying to be, a historical tale of Vlad the impaler, a historical tale of Dracular, a dissection of the use of terror in human history, historical fiction, a reference source to all the works surround Vlad and Dracular or the ramblings of the authors. The sections of the book that focus on Vlad are well written and interesting but are few and far between.
It is summed up best in the authors own words in the book's epilogue "Perhaps we have strayed too far from 15th century Wallachia"
It is summed up best in the authors own words in the book's epilogue "Perhaps we have strayed too far from 15th century Wallachia"
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews