The Norman Conquest - The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England - Softcover

Morris, Marc

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1605986518 ISBN 13: 9781605986517

Publisher: Pegasus, 2014

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

Stunning in its action and drama, this book illuminates fully what turns out to have been a tangled and violent passage in history.

A lively subject, depicted with dash and color, brought to bright life with telling detail. Morris gives a compelling account of the invasion by William the Conqueror in 1066 and the violent struggle thereafter. Morris provides a much-needed, modern account of the Normans in England that respects past events more than present ideologies.

It has been argued that the Norman conquest of England, initiated by William the Conqueror's victory at the Battle of Hasting in 1066, was the single most important event in all of English history. Marc Morris' meticulous and absorbing analysis of this seismic historical shift reaffirms that sweeping assertion. But where Morris' book really excels is in its understanding of the conquest's ramifications for the nation's demographics, language, and ruling elite.

A historian who specializes in the Middle Ages, especially that period's monarchies and aristocracy, Morris takes thoroughness to new heights as he compares all the available sources in this valuable text. A thoroughly enjoyable book from an historian's historian who can write for the masses.

Book Description:

The definitive account for our times of a pivotal moment in English history

About this edition

• Publisher: Pegasus
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1605986518
• ISBN 13: 9781605986517
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464