Customer Reviews

Anglo-Saxon England: Reissue with a new cover (Oxford history of England)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is filled with factual information, but because Sir Frank Stenton also lends his sagacious opinions the book is both enjoyable and easy to understand. This book is several hundred pages long with tiny print, and so packed with information, that you'll know everything possible about Anglo-Saxon history. Stenton always prefers the probable to the outrageous and does not seem to go with the popular opinions about kings, queens, or events. You must read this, but only if you're really, really interested in the subject. Otherwise, it'll go right over your head.

Sir Stenton has composed a masterpiece of a history text in his most famous book. A caveat, however, in that the text itself was written by someone who was a professional historian. As such, the text is as dry as you would expect. It is, perhaps, the most comprehensive text on the subject available to the open market, but while it is very name, date, and place intensive, there is little in the way of anecdotal information that might interest the merely casual reader. For someone who is interest in more an introduction than an indepth analysis, I would recommend The Anglo-Saxons, edited by James Campbell.

This book is the single best source of information about Anglo-Saxon England. I would only caution that this books is not for the novice historian. Unfamiliarity with the topic will leave you wondering what your reading and completely lost.

A fascinating read, which takes the reader right through, from the migration period, to the 11th Century. Overall, an excellent book!

From the research I have done, this is THE book on the Anglo-Saxons. I have read 18 other books on the Anlgo-Saxons and this book by F. M. Stenton is from which they all derive. They would reference their debt to Stenton in their introductions and declare that their work merely a repackaging, or an extending of this book. This book contains the most knowledge about the Anglo-Saxons, and no other author has yet to approach it's breadth. This is the most complete singular source on the Anglo-Saxons you will find, and does an excellent job incorporating textual and place-name evidence into the narrative. If you are looking for recent impacts of Archaeology on the topic, Stenton did not use them to great extent, and you will have to look elsewhere, specifically in some of the more recent books. All in all, if you want to start reading about Anglo-Saxon history and do not want just a mere survey, this is the book for you.

This work is one of the most important studies ever written on this topic. In painstaking detail, Sir Stenton addresses the development and structure of Anglo-Saxon society, political structure, economic structure, religious structure, relationship with the continent, etc. The book is quite readable and packed with information.

As others have noted, this is not the best book to start out with however. In particular the lack of maps can make it hard to follow especially if you can't tell Mercia from East Anglia. The book presupposes a reasonable understanding of English geography and political boundaries during the Anglo-Saxon period, so other books are necessary to fill that gap.

On the other hand there is simply no other work written which does as good a job in providing a detailed, comprehensive picture of Anglo-Saxon England as this one. Highly recommended.

As everyone else says, this is a person, place, date, event intensive survey of Anglo-Saxon England. What is missing is some sense of what made Anglo-Saxon culture different from the pre-existing British-Roman culture in England and different from the Frankish culture that was emerging at the same time on the continent. It is clear from the events that the Anglo-Saxons had a lot in common with the Franks, Danes and North Germans and almost nothing in common with the British but why this might have been is simply not explored in this book.

I found it helpful to imagine the individual Anglos-Saxon movers and shakers before Alfred the Great who are and chronicled in this book as the kind of people described by Sam Newton in "The Origins of Beowulf" and by JRR Tolkien in "Finn and Hengest". Newton's "The Origins of Beowulf" is very readable; Tolkien's "Finn and Hengest" is not so readable but it is rewarding.

If you think you might be interested in the Anglo-Saxons, begin with "The Origins of Beowulf." If you want to know more about these late Migration Period North Germans, Danes and Geats, and especially if you are interested in Anglo-Saxon as a possible North and Baltic Sea lingua franca, then go to "Finn and Hengest."

Eighteen chapters and an epilogue that run through almost 700 dense pages and covers all aspects and vicissitudes relating to Anglo-Saxon England. Covering in one single historical frame, and a linear storytelling, all the historic regions of England and their connections with the Continent from the end of the Roman times to the end of William the Conqueror's reign. Encyclopedic in scope, Homeric for its breadth of characters. Masterful all in all. Not for the general reader, but not exclusively for the scholar either. A classic since 1943, its first publication. Demanding, of course, but rewarding in proportion to the care and interest deposited in its reading. I myself skipped many passages that were not of my own interest, which didn't prevent me form picking up the story later on, safely, without feeling historically stranded. The index of contents plays in this book a life saving role, due to the density of each chapter, which flows uninterrupted throughout.

The effort that such an enterprise entails, the mastery in the telling and the knowledge of the subject matter demonstrated, must ensure that this book continues to be a classic for generations. However, I am giving it 4 stars, and not 5, because I believe this should have been not one book, but several, dealing with the different topics separately. Despite the talent of the writer, it is still too heavy a book to swallow.