Description
A beautiful beautiful book archaeology is changing so much about the way we view the socalled Dark Ages Williams is just brilliant at bringing them to light Rory Stewart on The Rest is Politics
From the bestselling author of Viking Britain a new epic history of our forgotten past
As Tolkien knew Britain in the Dark Ages was a mosaic of little kingdoms Many of them fell by the wayside Some vanished without a trace Others have stories that can be told
ELMET HWICCE LINDSEY DUMNONIA ESSEX RHEGED POWYS SUSSEX FORTRIU
In Lost Realms Thomas Williams bestselling author of Viking Britain uncovers the forgotten origins and untimely demise of nine kingdoms that hover in the twilight between history and fable whose stories hum with saints and gods and miracles with giants and battles and the ruin of cities Why did some realms like Wessex Mercia Northumbria and Gwynedd prosper while these nine fell
From the Scottish Highlands to the Cornish coastline from the Welsh borders to the Thames Estuary Williams brings together new archaeological revelations with the few precious fragments of written sources to have survived to rebuild a lost world a world where the halls of farmerlords survive as ghostmarks in the soil where the vestiges of hillforts cling to rocky outcrops and gravefields and barrowmounds shelter the bodies of the ancient dead This is the world of Arthur and Urien Bede and Taliesin of the Picts and Britons and Saxon migration of magic and war myth and miracle
In riveting detail Williams uses Britains ancient landscape to resurrect a lost past where lives were lived with as much vigour and joy as in any other age where people fought and loved and toiled and suffered grief and disappointment just as cutting as our own In restoring some of these voices he raises questions matching many we face today how do nations form and why do some fail How do communities adapt to catastrophe and how do people insulate themselves from change How do we construct the past and why do we like the people of early medieval Britain revere it often finding in the tales of those longgone a curious sense of belonging
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.