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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The true Arthur of England?, February 1, 2007
This review is from: Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England (Paperback)
Ok, that title was just to catch your attention! But I have long thought that the real King Arthur of legend was based on the Anglo Saxon King Alfred. It would be unlikely for Normans to want to draw any such parallels; but instead of knights Alfred drew around him scholars, and instead of a Merlin he had the Welsh Asser by his side. But you will get none of that sort of thing in this book. This book is good history written in a fluid style that is hard to put down. There is none of that heaping up of sub-clauses and name-dropping that you get in so many histories. This man can write!
Pollard gives you all the background you need, and deftly weaves into this work enough detail about Anglo Saxon and Viking life (and even a little Celtic) to give you a good grounding in that age. You aren't always aware that he is doing it because customs are often introduced as anecdotes or to explain a fact bearing on the story line. Nor is this work restricted to the southern counties of England. The declining Carolignian Empire and most other places that the Vikings came into contact with are well documented.
So, is this book crammed with a lot of trivia? No, you never once get that feeling. Always Pollard's words are interesting and relevant. Indeed, at the end of your over 300-page read, you will be surprised that so much was contained in the book.
Nor does Pollard idolise Alfred. He seeks to extract the man from the myth; and yet when all is said and done, you will understand why the Victorians called this man Alfred, Great. Alfred's story is a great story; he stood up to the bully, and he adapted the social order of his people in order to do so (much as we are now doing to defend ourselves against terrorists); and he did it with guts. Don't take my word for it: read for yourself. And if there are any film makers out there who want to continue the successful Lord of the Rings ethos, why not base a film on this book? It would have to be better than the only other film I know of Alfred, which depicted him as a psychological misfit.
This is a great book about a great man.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The man behind the myth, May 10, 2007
This review is from: Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England (Paperback)
Justin Pollard's strength is the canny way he brings ancient stories to life by focussing on the human, emotional drivers that set his protagonists into action. The social and political context of Alfred's world is dealt with sensitively and non-judgmentally, leaving the reader to draw his/her own conclusions with the assistance of Pollard's meticulous research.
An excellent work: a readable and informative benchmark for the subject matter. Pollard's thesis, that Alfred was the greatest Englishman, is highly persuasive.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Done!, March 6, 2010
This review is from: Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England (Paperback)
I was looking for a biography of Alfred The Great that would come as close as possible to give some feel for what the real man must have been like. The man behind the legend so to speak. This book is an intriguing interpretation of the few documents which have survived and is probably as near as anyone is likely to come to capturing the essence of who he was as a person.
Between Bernard Cornwell's sour take on Alfred in The Saxon Stories and Joan Wolf's highly romantized one in The Edge of the Light I wanted to find something with a more a scholarly approach. The really funny thing is that both Cornwell and Wolf used the same sources that Pollard did and all three had the documented events spot on. It was when they started interpreting them that they all took off in different directions. A lesson to us all in how history can be spun without telling even a single lie.
The author is very straightforward in pointing out that the only real evidence that has survived consists of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, some charters (which Pollard writes may been forged), some of Alfred's own writings and translations and Asser's biography of Alfred on which he has relied heavily. Nevertheless Pollard has produced a very well written book that is not only credible (at least to me) but one that is so readable it's hard to put down. This is an author I will follow
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