An exhilarating sweep across European history either side of the year 1000; riveting

I relished the blood and thunder narrative – the work of a great storyteller at his best

Millennium is a superb, fascinating and erudite medieval banquet of slaughter, sanctity and sex, filled with emperors, whores and monks

Fast and lively… another blockbuster

Millennium ranges far in both time and space yet always returns to its central theme: the right ordering of Christendom… it is a narrative history in the grand manner, written with panache and confidence… A marvellous, enthralling read

A mighty narrative of kings and popes, battles and massacres… A tremendously good read

Holland excels at narration, never jogging when he can gallop… His highly individual road map to the hitherto ‘dark ages’ is written with forceful – and convincing – panache

Enjoyable and exuberantly argued… storytelling on a magisterial scale

Tom Holland is a gifted narrator who covers the field with panache and a rich fund of adjectives

Holland has written an original and elegant book

Holland’s book . . . is big in every sense; and at its heart is a big idea that some may well deem heretical, others – myself included – profoundly imaginative . . . Holland’s brilliantly written account of the Canossa incident, and its far-reaching consequences, is typical of the eloquence and historical imagination of the entire book . . . A remarkable book that prompts many reflections on our own day . . . Millennium is both a vastly entertaining read . . . as well as deeply intelligent: it constitutes a major contribution to some of the most crucial issues of our time

Holland has a mightily readable style, in which powerful Latinate rhetoric jostles with cheery colloquialism . . . Far more than the stories of Greeks and Romans, this is your history

Holland turns his brilliant narrative spotlight on the so-called ‘dark ages’ … Global in reach, this book sweeps thrillingly over the troubled centuries that saw the triumph of Byzantium, the ascent of Islam – and the lingering disaster of the Crusades

It is perfectly right for Holland to claim a great deal for the eleventh century, of which his book is a splendid, highly coloured canvas

At last, a book that sheds much-needed light on those 1,000 years between Roman Britain and the Norman conquest that we call the dark ages

Holland tells a cracking tale, vividly bringing this neglected era of monks, popes, knights and serfs back to life