The Norman Conquest The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of AngloSaxon England (Audible Audio Edition) Marc Morris Frazer Douglas Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : The Norman Conquest The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of AngloSaxon England (Audible Audio Edition) Marc Morris Frazer Douglas Audible Studios Books
A riveting and authoritative history of the single most important event in English history The Norman Conquest.
An upstart French duke who sets out to conquer the most powerful and unified kingdom in Christendom. An invasion force on a scale not seen since the days of the Romans. One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles ever fought.
This new history explains why the Norman Conquest was the most significant cultural and military episode in English history. Assessing the original evidence at every turn, Marc Morris goes beyond the familiar outline to explain why England was at once so powerful and yet so vulnerable to William the Conqueror's attack; why the Normans, in some respects less sophisticated, possessed the military cutting edge; how William's hopes of a united Anglo-Norman realm unraveled, dashed by English rebellions, Viking invasions, and the insatiable demands of his fellow conquerors.
This is a tale of powerful drama, repression, and seismic social change the Battle of Hastings itself; the sudden introduction of castles and the massive rebuilding of every major church; the total destruction of an ancient ruling class. Language, law, architecture, and even attitudes toward life itself were altered forever by the coming of the Normans.
The Norman Conquest The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of AngloSaxon England (Audible Audio Edition) Marc Morris Frazer Douglas Audible Studios Books
As a complete novice regarding English history (especially around the time of the Norman Conquest) I thought I would give The Norman Conquest a shot. I was not at all disappointed.Norris, like most good historians, does a great job getting the reader up to speed. He describes the pre-norman population structure of England of slaves, peasants, thegns, and earls. He charts a fairly thorough history of the early kings of England form Aethelred the Unready to Canute the Great to Edward the Confessor and ultimately William the Conqueror. What struck me (as someone completely new to English history) was just how incredibly unstable these Kingdoms were. Rulers would employ by necessity any and every means necessary to ensure that their reign was secure. But peasant uprisings, intrigue from jealous nobles or family, inconvenient raids from Norse warriors--made ruling during the time of the 1000s a most challenging affair. It was a cut-throat world of blinding and maiming your opponents and back stabbing your "friends".
William the Conqueror was not immune to such savage tactics (quite the contrary), and ultimately he had to result to "the harrying" to quell the frequent uprisings of the conquered English several years after the battle of Hastings.
Norris does well to get us acquainted with the times and figures of tumultuous turn of the millennium. What he does even better is he presents the often contradictory source material of the period and allows the reader to partake in his own internal evaluation of the accuracy of the accounts. He tells the reader why one chronicle may be more accurate in a particular instance and why another may be more accurate in another instance. In all of this however, Norris leaves room for a conversation--always allowing the reader to come to his own conclusions based on the evidence--which is great historical writing. There is nothing worse than a historian who props up his opinions and hunches as fact, and leaves it at that.
All in all, this is an enjoyable book of a time I previously knew little about. I might have preferred more battle details--tactics, maneuvers, fighting styles--while Norris focuses by and large on the political aspect of the period. But still, good book. Good historian.
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England (Audible Audio Edition): Marc Morris, Frazer Douglas, Audible Studios: Books, ,Marc Morris, Frazer Douglas, Audible Studios,The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England,Audible Studios,B00ET84AIC
People also read other books :
- Zack Choice Harry E Gilleland Jr Books
- A Christmas Story Wall Calendar Day Dream 9781629053110 Books
- Time Travel Adventures of The 1800 Club Book X eBook Robert McAuley
- The raggedtrousered philanthropists Robert Tressell 9781171854838 Books
- Addicted To His Stroke India T Norfleet 9780991521135 Books
The Norman Conquest The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of AngloSaxon England (Audible Audio Edition) Marc Morris Frazer Douglas Audible Studios Books Reviews
It is pretty difficult to find a detailed history book that is both scholarly and entertaning. Marc Morris makes most of the history of the Norman conquest of England read like a good suspense story. Mr. Morris also makes several very interesting points that you might (must?) have missed in high-school. For example, most people (the writer of this review included) think that William crossed the channel with six or seven thousand armed men, won the battle of Hastings and thus conquered the British Isles. The book makes it clear that we are talking about a prolonged and bloody struggle that went on even beyond Williams' death and took the lives of maybe hundreds of thousands in continuous wars and insurgencies, but mostly due to war-related famines and diseases. Also, people tend to sympathize with the Anglo-Saxon English and abhor the Norman invaders. Mr. Morris correctly points to the barbarism of both sides and concludes that for the British, both were are ancestors, for bad or for good. He manouvers admirably among the various chronicles, adding insights that clarify which ones are to be believed. He starts with the magnificent Bayeaux Tapestry and pretty much ends his story after the completion of the Domesday Book, one of the marvels of historical documentation. He does it in great literary style and only occasionally turns a bit tedious (for the layman!). The best recommendation - I was upset, even a bit angry, that the book ended. I wanted more, but even the longer conquests and the better books must end somewhere. Read by all means.
I enjoyed this book very much. I prefer historical books to focus on the person, which this does, but not to the extent that historical accuracy is sacrificed. Morris brings out William's personality while staying true to the historical facts that are known. While Morris does make assertions, he looked at primary sources as well as other historians' interpretations based on the available evidence. Morris might state his preference for an interpretation, but at no time, did Morris not identify an interpretation as more than that. History is made by people, all of whom have an agenda; if historians don't take into account the personalities and personal lives of those who make it, true understanding of the events remain elusive, in my opinion. Morris strikes a very readable and enjoyable balance in this biography between the dry facts of dates, places, and numbers of soldiers, and the people who made the decision to start the battle in the first place. I learned a lot about the time period and the people from this book.
As a complete novice regarding English history (especially around the time of the Norman Conquest) I thought I would give The Norman Conquest a shot. I was not at all disappointed.
Norris, like most good historians, does a great job getting the reader up to speed. He describes the pre-norman population structure of England of slaves, peasants, thegns, and earls. He charts a fairly thorough history of the early kings of England form Aethelred the Unready to Canute the Great to Edward the Confessor and ultimately William the Conqueror. What struck me (as someone completely new to English history) was just how incredibly unstable these Kingdoms were. Rulers would employ by necessity any and every means necessary to ensure that their reign was secure. But peasant uprisings, intrigue from jealous nobles or family, inconvenient raids from Norse warriors--made ruling during the time of the 1000s a most challenging affair. It was a cut-throat world of blinding and maiming your opponents and back stabbing your "friends".
William the Conqueror was not immune to such savage tactics (quite the contrary), and ultimately he had to result to "the harrying" to quell the frequent uprisings of the conquered English several years after the battle of Hastings.
Norris does well to get us acquainted with the times and figures of tumultuous turn of the millennium. What he does even better is he presents the often contradictory source material of the period and allows the reader to partake in his own internal evaluation of the accuracy of the accounts. He tells the reader why one chronicle may be more accurate in a particular instance and why another may be more accurate in another instance. In all of this however, Norris leaves room for a conversation--always allowing the reader to come to his own conclusions based on the evidence--which is great historical writing. There is nothing worse than a historian who props up his opinions and hunches as fact, and leaves it at that.
All in all, this is an enjoyable book of a time I previously knew little about. I might have preferred more battle details--tactics, maneuvers, fighting styles--while Norris focuses by and large on the political aspect of the period. But still, good book. Good historian.
0 Response to "[B4Q]⇒ Read Gratis The Norman Conquest The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of AngloSaxon England (Audible Audio Edition) Marc Morris Frazer Douglas Audible Studios Books"
Post a Comment