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I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
Harold is one of my heroes. I have many books about him, texts and novels, but this novel I feel captures him best. King Harold was a very complex man and a very competent man. Most remember him for losing at the Battle of Hastings and do not know just what a good organiser and general he actually was and how his previous actions prove this. Harold was a political man who knew when to push and when to stand back, when to compromise and when not to.
I can point you to textbooks and academic papers on Harold, as a man, an Earl, and as King, but Helen Hollick’s book is very well researched, and I am someone who has also done his homework on this period, and indeed produced an educational DD-ROM on the period. But why not let Hollick take all that research and information and weave…
An epic retelling of the tide of events that led to the Norman conquest of England. This saga weaves together the history of a powerful family of noblemen with that of the aggressive bastard of Normandy, culminating in the fierce and tragic battle which changed the course of England's history.
I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
Elizabeth Chadwick is one of those authors who is capable of taking the reader behind the obvious of the characters she writes about. The Winter Mantel is about the tragic English hero, and some say saint, Earl Waltheof, who was the only English Earl to continue to rule during the Norman takeover of England, and his complicated, and tragic, relationship with his new Norman masters and, indeed, his Norman wife, Judith.
Waltheof chaffed under the Norman yoke and revolted many times to help English claimants to the throne, but did it just once too often. Chadwick excellently exposes the political and family dynamics driving and even holding back this gifted but flawed hero.
This, again, is from a period I am very familiar with.
Fresh from his defeat of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, William of Normandy has returned home in triumph, accompanied by the English nobles he cannot trust to leave behind. For Waltheof of Huntingdon, however, rebellion is not at the forefront of his thoughts. From the moment he catches sight of Judith, daughter of the King's formidable sister, he knows he has found his future wife. When Waltheof saves Judith's life, it is clear that the attraction is mutual. But marriage has little to do with love in mediaeval Europe. William refuses to let the couple wed and Waltheof…
I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
Being British I dislike reading books where we come off second best. The American Revolution (more accurately, The Anglo-American Civil War) is a classic example. Much of my, and I suspect most people’s view of the war, comes from American films and TV programmes. So, why did I read The Fort? Well I love Bernard Cornwell’s style of writing: he manages to bring a lot of background information and knowledge without you noticing what he has done.
The Fort is about American incompetence during said war and shows just how much of their written history is, in fact, inaccurate legend.
Reading it led me to buy and read textbooks about the war and learn just what it was all about and just how wrong American propaganda on the topic is.
The Penobscot Expedition is an extraordinary story, one that has fascinated the author for years, and will now fascinate his readers. Summer 1779, a British force of fewer than one thousand Scottish infantry were sent to build a garrison in the State of Maine. The war of Independence was in its third year and no other British troops stood between Canada and New York. The State of Massachusetts was determined to expel the British, but when they sent a fleet of forty vessels to 'captivate, kill and destroy' they underestimated their enemies, calm in battle and ready for victory. Told…
I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
Just who was the Germanic God who carried many variations of the name, Wodin, Odin, Oðin, Votan, Wodan, Photan? What is the actual story behind the Germanic/Norse mythology he features in? This novel is an extremely amusing explanation that in fact he was a rather dodgy trader who, partly because of his earlier occupation as a doctor, ends up as a god in all of Germania, as do his also dodgy mates and promiscuous wife.
A previous knowledge of the mythology helps, but is not essential. I found it very funny and it was one of the inspirations for my own tales.
In the second century AD, a Greek nobleman is travelling and living abroad in Germany while carrying on an affair with a military man's wife. When discovered, he takes an emergency business trip to save his life and packs amongst his belongings certain items that lead the people he encounters to think him a Norse God, a fortuitous point of view which he does little to dispel. Forced to keep up the pretence of being a god while staying one step ahead of his lover's jealous husband, Photinus must juggle the severity of his situation with the enjoyment of being…
John Julius Norwich’s A Short History of Byzantium ignited my passion for the Byzantines in the early 2000s. I knew little about them before reading that book; now I rarely read any other topic. I have always loved historical fiction and was dismayed to find so few books about the Byzantines. Once I read about the remarkable life of Anna Dalassena I realized I had found a character to write about and remedy that shortage. I am presently working on my fifth book and third novel, which will be about Anna’s son, Emperor Alexios I Comnenus. I also have a book of short stories and a brief Byzantine history.
Simon Turney’s novel, The Bear of Byzantium, covers a period of time in late 1041 to late 1042 that I wrote about in my own book. This was a real-life Game of Thrones period with stupendous Viking members of the Imperial Varangian Guard such as Harald Hardrada, a dying emperor, a spurned empress, a conniving heir, and a crafty Viking wise-woman foretelling the future. Turney’s battle scenes will have you believing you are there manning the Great Palace’s walls with the Varangians, looking down on the streets of Constantinople seething with rioting mobs ready to execute a hated emperor.
The wolves of Odin sail to the centre of the world: Constantinople.
AD 1041. After successfully avenging the death of his father, Halfdan and the crew of the Sea Wolf seek adventure in strange new lands, far from their Scandinavian home.
They join the fleet of Harald Hardrada, the legendary Viking commander, sailing back to Constantinople from the battlefields of Georgia. There they join the Varangians, the personal bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperors populated almost exclusively by Viking warriors. But Constantinople has changed during Hardrada's long absence.
The Emperor, Michael IV, is ailing visibly, and powerful factions in his court…
Ian Stuart Sharpe likes to imagine he is descended from Guðrum, King of the East Angles, although DNA tests and a deep disdain for camping suggest otherwise. He is the author of two novels set in his alternate Vikingverse, the All Father Paradox and Loki’s Wager. He once won a prize at school for Outstanding Progress and chose a dictionary as his reward, secretly wishing it had been an Old Norse phrasebook. It took him thirty years, but he has finally realised his dream.
Lars Brownworth’s The Sea Wolves is a great place to begin your Viking voyage. Like any good Norse raid it is breathtaking and action-packed. It has a wide scope, colouring in all the corners of the Viking world, from the Vinland to Byzantium. It is easy to digest, and as swaggering as it is educational.
In AD 793 Norse warriors struck the English isle of Lindisfarne and laid waste to it. Wave after wave of Norse ‘sea-wolves’ followed in search of plunder, land, or a glorious death in battle. Much of the British Isles fell before their swords, and the continental capitals of Paris and Aachen were sacked in turn. Turning east, they swept down the uncharted rivers of central Europe, captured Kiev and clashed with mighty Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
But there is more to the Viking story than brute force. They were makers of law - the term itself comes…
I grew up on a Viking battlefield, in an English coastal village once raided then occupied by Norsemen. We had ancestors who lived on the Isle of Orkney, and in the Celtic south-west. From a young age, I read Norse and Celtic myths and legends, and went on to study history and philosophy – and then became an author. Now, I have family in Sweden and grandchildren of Ash and Elm. My list offers pure escapism, but also shows how our ancestors lived in an age with no electricity or compulsory schooling. It’s the wonderful combination of the ‘other world’ myths and history that I believe makes us who we are.
This very readable non-fiction is an account of how the people we call the Vikings lived and why they wenta’viking.
Historian Neil Price describes in an easy-to-comprehend manner the Scandinavian world of long ago – when gods, spirits, and humans co-existed in a brutal axe-age. The author explains strange superstitions and how the belief in supernatural beings affected daily life.
Readers also learn about the terrible climate catastrophe that made northern lands virtually uninhabitable, and where Viking explorers sailed to in search of fertile land and treasure. My own family background gives me a strong connection to this history and its special mythology.
'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland
The 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the…
As a history buff—one can never be expert enough—by looking to the past I hope to glimpse the future, but mostly to make sense of the present. Power, greed and sex have driven people since before history was written, but there have always been those willing to die for something more. What causes are worth such dedication? Who were these people who were willing to give all? I was never in the military (my contact lenses are thick as bottle caps) but I try never to write battle porn, only to tell their stories as accurately and entertainingly as I can.
I’m actually recommending the entire run of history books from Osprey Publishing. You’re not a history buff until you have a shelf full of Ospreys. With over 2,300 titles (and counting!) in dozens of series, there’s almost no period they don’t cover, from ancient times until recent events. Each book is profusely illustrated and incredibly detailed, yet a slim read—a quick but worthwhile introduction into their respective topic. They focus on military history, but include plenty of background info, enough to make you an instant authority on your chosen era. For The Last Viking I got an overview with The Vikings, The Varangian Guard 988–1453, and Saxon, Viking and Norman, before my deep dive into the primary Greek, Byzantine, and Scandinavian sources.
In this worthy addition to the Elite series, Ian Heath transports us to the time of the Vikings examining their epic journeys and the ships they made them in, their methods of warfare - the organisation of their armies and tactics employed, their appearance and equipment and the general history of these fascinating warrior-explorers. His authoritative text is backed by many fine illustrations and photographs including 12 stunning full colour plates by Angus McBride, one of the world's most respected military artists.
I was only thirteen when I first travelled to Greece and began to learn the ancient Greek language at school. That double impression of a vibrant, living country and its people, and the extraordinary fact that there they still speak a language that was first written down more than 3000 years ago, set me upon a lifetime of studying and teaching, and inspired me to communicate my love of Greece and Greeks to others. I’ve written several books, all of them Greek-themed in one way or another. These are some of the books that have accompanied me along the way – and new ones that may inspire you too.
This is the ideal introduction to the thousand-year, Greek-speaking empire of Byzantium that lasted right through the Middle Ages until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. A joy to read, and beautifully illustrated, it brings together the strange contradictions of an empire that was at once intensely Christian and spiritual but also loved power and wealth and invented the arts of diplomacy as we know them today.
Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism - gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium - long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium - what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today. Bringing the latest scholarship to a general audience in accessible prose, Herrin focuses each short chapter around a representative theme, event, monument, or historical figure, and examines it within the full sweep of Byzantine history - from the foundation of Constantinople,…
I’m a British scholar – a former university lecturer, many moons ago – now living in rural southern Greece. In fact, I have Greek as well as UK citizenship, which really pleases me because I’ve loved Greece and things Greek since boyhood. I started to learn ancient Greek at the age of ten! I’ve written over fifty books, mostly on ancient Greek history and philosophy, including many volumes of translations from ancient Greek. But I’ve also written children’s fiction in the form of gamebooks, a biography, a book on hypnosis, a retelling of the Greek myths (with my wife Kathryn) ... I’ll stop there!
This is an outstanding short introduction to Greek history – with a really neat gimmick. Instead of writing a standard kind of history, Cartledge picks on the eleven most prominent cities of ancient Greece and writes up their story in about ten or twelve pages. But the chapters are also organized chronologically, so that the first two cities, Cnossos and Mycenae, illustrate Greek prehistory. Then we move on to the Archaic Period (four places, including Sparta), then the Classical Period (three, including Athens), and then the Hellenistic period (one: Alexandria, the greatest city in the world before Rome). He ends with a leap into late antiquity and the eastern Roman empire with Byzantium. I’m always on the lookout for books that can turn people on to Greek history, get them to share my (and Cartledge’s) passion: this one does it brilliantly.
The contribution of the Ancient Greeks to modern western culture is incalculable. In the worlds of art, architecture, myth, literature, and philosophy, the world we live in would be unrecognizably different without the formative influence of Ancient Greek models.
Ancient Greek civilization was defined by the city - in Greek, the polis, from which we derive 'politics'. It is above all this feature of Greek civilization that has formed its most enduring legacy, spawning such key terms as aristocracy, oligarchy, tyranny and - last but by no means least - democracy.
This stimulating Very Short Introduction to Ancient Greece takes…
