'Powerful' The Economist'Fascinating, panoramic . . . Roach brings an expert eye and page-turning energy' Helen Castor, bestselling author of She Wolves'Narrated with pace, clarity, authority and style, Roach's book is a bracing tour of the world that the Normans made their own' Thomas Williams, bestselling author of Viking Britain'A fresh retelling . . . written with enthusiasm an...

An in-depth exploration of documentary forgery at the turn of the first millenniumForgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium takes a fresh look at documentary forgery and historical memory in the Middle Ages. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, religious houses across Europe began falsifying texts to improve local documentary records on an unprecedented scale. As Levi Roach illustrates, the resulting wave of forgery signaled major shifts in soc...

This engaging study focuses on the role of assemblies in later Anglo-Saxon politics, challenging and nuancing existing models of the late Anglo-Saxon state. Its ten chapters investigate both traditional constitutional aspects of assemblies - who attended these events, where and when they met, and what business they conducted - and the symbolic and representational nature of these gatherings. Levi Roach takes into account important recent work on continental rulership, and argues that assem...

An imaginative reassessment of Æthelred "the Unready," one of medieval England’s most maligned kings and a major Anglo-Saxon figure The Anglo-Saxon king Æthelred "the Unready" (978–1016) has

The first global history of the Normans, who - beyond the conquest of England - came to dominate Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.How did descendants of Viking marauders came to dominate Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East?It is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce freebooters, of fortunes made and fortunes lost. The Normans made their influence felt across all of western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to No...

'Not just a brilliant compendium of biographies, but the biography of an institution: a marvellous read' - TOM HOLLANDThe perfect listen for fans of UNRULY'This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle'(William Shakespeare, Richard II)The British monarchy is the one of the most iconic and enduring institutions in the world. It has weathered the storms of rebellion, revolution and war that brought many of Europe's royal families to a...

Brought to you by Penguin.A myth-busting biography of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, which retells the dramatic story of the civil war from her perspectiveHenrietta Maria is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain's Three Kingdoms. Condemned as that 'Popish brat of France', a 'notorious whore' and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic ? so causing a civi...

A humorous deep-dive into the varied - and oft-gruesome - deaths of the King and Queens of England and Scotland.How the monarchs of England and Scotland met their deaths has been a wonderful mixture of violence, infections, overindulgence and occasional regicide. In Mortal Monarchs, medical historian Dr Suzie Edge examines 1,000 years of royal deaths to uncover the plots, accusations, rivalries, and ever-present threat of poison that the kings and queens o...

Brought to you by Penguin.**A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021, AS CHOSEN BY THE TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, TELEGRAPH AND TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENTA ground-breaking portrait of the most turbulent century in English history**Among foreign observers, seventeenth-century England was known as 'Devil-Land': a diabolical country of fallen angels, torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. Clare Jackson's dazzling, origina...

Tom Phillips (Humans; Truth) and Jonn Elledge (The Compendium of Not Quite Everything) team up to debunk the greatest conspiracy theories humans have ever espoused - to teach us how not to fall for them.From the Satanic Panic to the anti-vaxx movement, it's always been human nature to believe we're being lied to by the powers that be (and sometimes, to be fair, we absolutely are).But while it can be fun to indulge...

A fresh and vivid account of the unexplored relationship between two of England's best-known queens - from the bestselling author of The Stolen Crown and The House of Boleyn'This joint biography of these two queens reads as good as any ripping yarn and is well worth five stars.' - READER REVIEW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'A new perspective of a mother and daughter's relationship brutally ended by fear and a wandering eye. A brilliant an...

'An engaged, informed companion for the armchair time traveller...captures the thrill and the difficulties of interpreting the past'. TLS'Duncan has written a masterpiece - a journey and an investigation that fuses landscape and history, chasing the echoes of Boudica's rebellion and finding its physical traces that still surround us today.' Nicholas Crane'A brilliant imagining of the past. Mackay's...