Publishers Weekly
03/22/2021
Historian Morris (The Norman Conquest) delivers a character-driven history of how the Anglo-Saxons developed England in the centuries between the end of Roman rule and the Norman conquest. Though very few written records exist from the fifth and sixth centuries, when immigrants from Germania arrived in England, Morris fills in the historical gaps with discussions of archaeological sites such as the Sutton Hoo ship burial, where a king (likely Rædwald of East Anglia) was laid to rest with his treasures in the early seventh century. Drawing from the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other medieval texts, Morris describes how King Offa of Mercia transformed London into a business center in the eighth century, and discusses probable motivations for the building of Offa’s Dyke, which separated Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the native Britons of present-day Wales. Morris also debunks popular misconceptions such as the origins of Æthelred the Unready’s (c. 966–1016) nickname, explaining that it wasn’t recorded until the late 12th century and “indicated not a lack of readiness, but a lack of good counsel.” Bringing clarity and flashes of humor to discussions of Alfred the Great, St. Dunstan, Beowulf, and other touchstones of Anglo-Saxon England, this is a welcome introduction to a fascinating age. (May)
Justin Pollard
"The people and times are brought vividly back to life, allowing the reader to see, perhaps for the first time, the foundations of modern England. A remarkable achievement. Marc's book will surely become a must-read for any student of English history, and particularly of this woefully overlooked, but vital, period."
Dan Snow
"An asbolute masterpiece . It feels like the missing piece of historiography on an essential period of our past. Marc Morris is the platonic ideal of scholarly yet readable big history."
The Arts Fuse
"Medievalist Marc Morris has written an engaging account of turbulent times in a suitable and interesting style."
From the Publisher
Praise for Marc Morris’s The Norman Conquest:
A Best Book of the Year Kansas City Star
Stunning in its action and drama, this book illuminates fully what turns out to have been a tangled and violent passage in history.
The Literary Review
"Beginning with the desperate period when Roman rule had crumbled, Morris skillfully evokes each era of Anglo-Saxon England, the varying nature of the challenges facing its rulers and the crucial role, almost unimaginable to modern minds, that churchmen played in supporting and subverting its kings. Morris handles the grand narrative of Anglo-Saxon history well. Through this maze of chance, dynastic quarrels, abstruse ecclesiastical disputes and clashes of shield walls, Morris guides the reader with aplomb, providing a survey of Anglo-Saxon history that is both rounded and nuanced."
The Times (London) - Dan Jones
Medievalist Marc Morris has produced a deep dive into one of the murkiest ages in our national history. Morris is such an accomplished guide to the tricksy Anglo-Saxon world. Throughout this clever, lively book Morris leans enthusiastically into uncertainty, inviting the reader to figure out the puzzles with him. Much of the Anglo-Saxon world was wiped out by the Normans, but as Morris’s splendid new book shows, there is plenty we can still see, and enjoy, today.
A Best Book of the Year Providence Journal
Meticulous and absorbing. Where Morris’ book really excels is in its understanding of the conquest’s ramifications for the nation’s demographics, language, and ruling elite."
Ian Mortimer
"A rich trove of ancient wonders, worthy of many a night in the mead hall, listening to its telling! Yet it is also a book for our time. Marc Morris is a genius of medieval narrative, and I am full of admiration."
A Best Book of the Year (Praise for The Norman Con Kansas City Star
Stunning in its action and drama, this book illuminates fully what turns out to have been a tangled and violent passage in history.
A Best Book of the Year (Praise for The Norman Con Providence Journal
Meticulous and absorbing. Where Morris’ book really excels is in its understanding of the conquest’s ramifications for the nation’s demographics, language, and ruling elite."
Kansas City Star
Stunning in its action and drama, this book illuminates fully what turns out to have been a tangled and violent passage in history.
Providence Journal
Meticulous and absorbing. Where Morris’ book really excels is in its understanding of the conquest’s ramifications for the nation’s demographics, language, and ruling elite.
Kansas City Star
Stunning in its action and drama, this book illuminates fully what turns out to have been a tangled and violent passage in history.
Kirkus Reviews
2021-02-20
A comprehensive overview of the Anglo-Saxon era seeking “to see these people as they were…and try to shed the misconceptions about them that have developed in later centuries.”
Morris, author of The Norman Conquest, King John, William I, and other books of British history, returns with another compelling, sweeping story of old England, starting with the crumbling of the Roman administrative and military edifice in the mid-fifth century. The incursions by the Saxons, Picts, Scots, Jutes, and Angles, among others, wore down the Romanized Britons, and conversion to Christianity followed. Morris meticulously delineates the rise of the Northumbrian kingdom in the north and Mercia in the south, where the great King Offa reigned, and then moves on to the Vikings. Beginning with the raid of Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings ushered in a long era of marauding armies from the north, taking advantage of the enormous economic growth of the systems of trade further south. “The Scandinavians knew all about the rich coastal communities of the kingdoms to the south,” writes Morris, “and they also knew that they were undefended.” It wasn’t until the late ninth century, with the rise of Alfred the Great of Wessex, that the Norsemen were quelled, leading to the conversion of their leader, Guthrum, and consolidation of Anglo-Saxon fortification across the country’s boroughs and restoration of London in 886. “Alfred, in his determined efforts to undo the cultural destruction that decades of [V]iking attacks had caused,” writes Morris, “was also responsible for a remarkable renaissance in learning, and the elevation of English to a language of literature.” In this rich history, which draws on up-to-date archaeological data, the author also examines significant cultural and intellectual currents and the resurrection of monasticism in the 10th century. He concludes with the doomed King Harold II, whose death at the Battle of Hastings ended Anglo-Saxon rule in England.
A welcome refreshment of a seminal era in the forging of the English identity.
