[books 2014] The Anglo-Saxon World
Mar. 28th, 2014 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro14.The Anglo-Saxon World by Nicholas Higham and Martin Ryan
A great big colourful, map- and illustration-filled intro to the Anglo-Saxons.
Very pretty. Very big and heavy and I've been reading it since the beginning of February.
As I suspected, the archaeology has moved on leaps and bounds since I was doing this professionally, whereas the thinking on the recorded history hasn't changed much. (They were doing the extended excavations at Sutton Hoo when I was studying but the results hadn't been published; and the Staffordshire Hoard just squeaked into this edition).
It was a good refresher and for bringing me up to speed.
I'm getting more and more sucked into the post-Rome migration era.
There's a lot about the foundations of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (and Christianity) coming from the Franks, and left wondering if there's a good single-volume history of the Franks that would act as a companion to this. A quick search says there's one in the Peoples of Europe series (those who brought us The Norsemen in the Viking Age, which is frankly excellent), but if anyone has suggestions I'm open to it. I still have my copy of Gregory of Tours around here somewhere - there are some things which, no matter how far you stray from the fold, you just don't get rid of.
A great big colourful, map- and illustration-filled intro to the Anglo-Saxons.
Very pretty. Very big and heavy and I've been reading it since the beginning of February.
As I suspected, the archaeology has moved on leaps and bounds since I was doing this professionally, whereas the thinking on the recorded history hasn't changed much. (They were doing the extended excavations at Sutton Hoo when I was studying but the results hadn't been published; and the Staffordshire Hoard just squeaked into this edition).
It was a good refresher and for bringing me up to speed.
I'm getting more and more sucked into the post-Rome migration era.
There's a lot about the foundations of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (and Christianity) coming from the Franks, and left wondering if there's a good single-volume history of the Franks that would act as a companion to this. A quick search says there's one in the Peoples of Europe series (those who brought us The Norsemen in the Viking Age, which is frankly excellent), but if anyone has suggestions I'm open to it. I still have my copy of Gregory of Tours around here somewhere - there are some things which, no matter how far you stray from the fold, you just don't get rid of.
