Critics Review

• An absolute 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.

  DAN SNOW

• 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.

  IAN MORTIMER

• 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.

  JUSTIN POLLARD