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kathyh256 's review for:
As a huge admirer of Tom Holland's earlier books "Rubicon" and "Persian Fire" I came to this one with high expectations, which it didn't quite meet. The theory behind the book, that many of the changes of the 10th and 11th centuries were caused by the idea that the Millennium heralded the coming of the end of the world, was fascinating and I learnt a great deal about the history of the Holy Roman Empire and its conflict with the Papacy. Add in the rise of castle building in France, the influence of the monastery of Cluny, the fall of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the internal politics of the areas to become France and Germany, and that's a lot of material; then include the Vikings, the Saxon Kingdom of England and its invasion by the Normans, and that's even more information to digest. This was one of the problems of the book; the author was trying to cover too much, which meant there was an inevitable loss of focus. I enjoy excitingly written narrative history but my problem here was that the author's prose style, which is very vivid, at times became quite tiring to read and towards the end began to sound repetitive. An interesting, but flawed book.