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snow_phie's review against another edition
3.0
3.8 / 5.
An enjoyable and mostly accessible overview of the late Roman and early Medieval era in England / the British Isles. If you’re not familiar at all with this period, you may struggle to keep up with the places, the names and the amount of information thrown at you. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Bouddica, Athelstan, Ethelred and William the Conqueror (perhaps because I’m most familiar with them).
The book was originally published in 1981 and, despite reading the 2005 edition, it very much is of its time and would not be published today without a serious rewrite in the first few chapters. Constant references to early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as “Third World countries”, “barbarians” and talk of the “civilizing” influence of Christianity/Europe nearly made me stop reading and could, rightfully, frustrate readers.
It’s also a shame that women barely make an appearance (with the exception of Bouddica). For example Offa’s wife Cynethryth (only Anglo-Saxon queen who had her own coinage) and Emma of Normandy, queen of England and wife of both Ethelred the Unready and Canute. It’s a short book and a whistle stop tour of a very complex period of history and not much academic work had been done on women in that period then but, reading it in 2023, it felt like a gap.
So while I enjoyed the book (and only cost me £2 at a National Trust second hand bookshop in Boscastle - highly recommended), I’m sure you will find more up-to-date books on that period which are more reflective of the latest scholarship and archaeological findings, not to mention more inclusive in its scope.
An enjoyable and mostly accessible overview of the late Roman and early Medieval era in England / the British Isles. If you’re not familiar at all with this period, you may struggle to keep up with the places, the names and the amount of information thrown at you. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Bouddica, Athelstan, Ethelred and William the Conqueror (perhaps because I’m most familiar with them).
The book was originally published in 1981 and, despite reading the 2005 edition, it very much is of its time and would not be published today without a serious rewrite in the first few chapters. Constant references to early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as “Third World countries”, “barbarians” and talk of the “civilizing” influence of Christianity/Europe nearly made me stop reading and could, rightfully, frustrate readers.
It’s also a shame that women barely make an appearance (with the exception of Bouddica). For example Offa’s wife Cynethryth (only Anglo-Saxon queen who had her own coinage) and Emma of Normandy, queen of England and wife of both Ethelred the Unready and Canute. It’s a short book and a whistle stop tour of a very complex period of history and not much academic work had been done on women in that period then but, reading it in 2023, it felt like a gap.
So while I enjoyed the book (and only cost me £2 at a National Trust second hand bookshop in Boscastle - highly recommended), I’m sure you will find more up-to-date books on that period which are more reflective of the latest scholarship and archaeological findings, not to mention more inclusive in its scope.