House of York basis. Edward Plantagenet became Edward IV in 1461, thus merging the title of Duke of York with the crown. The most popular symbol of the house of York was the White Rose of York. The Yorkist rose is white in colour, because in Christian liturgical symbolism, white is the symbol of light, typifying innocence and purity, joy and glory. During the civil wars of the fifteenth century, the White Rose was the symbol of Yorkist forces opposed to the rival House of Lancaster. The red rose of Lancaster would be a later invention used to represent the House of Lancaster,
The World Is What It Is in 1996. The biography has been extensively reviewed: the reviewers include Paul Theroux, who wrote an earlier book about Naipaul. The biography was selected by the editors of the "New York Times Book Review" as one of the "Times"' "10 Best Books of 2008". It won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, and the British literary award the Hawthornden Prize. The World Is What It Is The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul is a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul by Patrick French. It was published in