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  • Published: 1 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9780563522768
  • Imprint: BBC Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $45.00
Categories:

In Search of the Dark Ages





A fascinating exploration of an often misunderstood period in British history

This edition of Michael Wood's groundbreaking first book explores the fascinating and mysterious centuries between the Romans and the Norman Conquest of 1066. In Search of the Dark Ages vividly conjures up some of the most famous names in British history, such as Queen Boadicea, leader of a terrible war of resistance against the Romans, and King Arthur, the 'once and future king', for whose riddle Wood proposes a new and surprising solution. Here too, warts and all, are the Saxon, Viking and Norman kings who laid the political foundations of England - Offa of Mercia, Alfred the Great, Athelstan, and William the Conqueror, whose victory at Hastings in 1066 marked the end of Anglo-Saxon England.

Reflecting recent historical, textual and archaeological research, this revised edition of Michael Wood's classic book overturns preconceptions of the Dark Ages as a shadowy and brutal era, showing them to be a richly exciting and formative period in the history of Britain.

'With In Search of the Dark Ages, Michael Wood wrote the book for history on TV.' The Times

'Michael Wood is the maker of some of the best TV documentaries ever made on history and archaeology.' Times Literary Supplement

  • Published: 1 September 2005
  • ISBN: 9780563522768
  • Imprint: BBC Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $45.00
Categories:

About the author

Michael Wood

Michael Wood is the author of Stendhal, America in the Movies, Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction (also available in Pimlico). He writes film and literary criticism for the London Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review and other publications. He studied Modern Languages at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was later a Fellow. He taught for along time at Columbia University in New York and then at the University of Exeter. He is currently Professor of English at Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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Praise for In Search of the Dark Ages

In Search of the Dark Ages, Michael Wood wrote the book for history on TV.

The Times

Michael Wood is the maker of some of the best TV documentaries ever made on history and archaeology.

Times Literary Supplement