Books
Yes, I am reading. Recent titles:
Land under England. Joseph O'Neill.
This is a 1935 novel about a fantastic world under northern England where our hero finds a remnant population of Romans living. But our Romans are no longer what we (or what he) expects. They have subordinated themselves to the demands of the State to the point of surrendering their own wills. Not a particularly winning style of writing, but I'd read worse.
Not a glowing recommendation--unless you like these sorts of stories.
Seahenge. Francis Pryor.
Britain AD. Francis Pryor.
The first of these I expected to be about the wooden ceremonial structure discovered in 1998 in Norfolk, England, and eventually it got to that. First, though, Pryor introduces us to the period Seahenge was constructed by looking at the history of ceremonial structures in Britain, and at the development of the archeology that was dealing with them. And in that way it was a fascinating look at our prehistory.
Recommended.
The second--well, you know where someone has a pet theory and beats you over the head with it again and again and again? That's this book. The theory is that there is nothing in the archeology that supports a Saxon invasion of England in the 5th-6th centuries. Okay, I'll buy that--now stop repeating yourself. Oy! He did present a different (for me) version of the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain, though, and that was worth the price of the book right there. Then we were back to "There is no evidence of an invasion". Yes, we got that. The changes in culture that one finds are simply a local population picking up new styles. Okay I can buy that too. Anyone who sees the amount of American pop-culture infesting the world would have to agree that it's possible. Then, though, Pryor tries to address the change from a Latin/Celtic speaking populace to an Old English speaking one, and that's where his analogies got twisted. He made comparisons to the triumph of Spanish and Portuguese in South America, but hey, there was an invading force there, and the native cultures were decimated by diseases. Your other readers might not know that, but this one does.
Lukewarm recommendation.
Land under England. Joseph O'Neill.
This is a 1935 novel about a fantastic world under northern England where our hero finds a remnant population of Romans living. But our Romans are no longer what we (or what he) expects. They have subordinated themselves to the demands of the State to the point of surrendering their own wills. Not a particularly winning style of writing, but I'd read worse.
Not a glowing recommendation--unless you like these sorts of stories.
Seahenge. Francis Pryor.
Britain AD. Francis Pryor.
The first of these I expected to be about the wooden ceremonial structure discovered in 1998 in Norfolk, England, and eventually it got to that. First, though, Pryor introduces us to the period Seahenge was constructed by looking at the history of ceremonial structures in Britain, and at the development of the archeology that was dealing with them. And in that way it was a fascinating look at our prehistory.
Recommended.
The second--well, you know where someone has a pet theory and beats you over the head with it again and again and again? That's this book. The theory is that there is nothing in the archeology that supports a Saxon invasion of England in the 5th-6th centuries. Okay, I'll buy that--now stop repeating yourself. Oy! He did present a different (for me) version of the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain, though, and that was worth the price of the book right there. Then we were back to "There is no evidence of an invasion". Yes, we got that. The changes in culture that one finds are simply a local population picking up new styles. Okay I can buy that too. Anyone who sees the amount of American pop-culture infesting the world would have to agree that it's possible. Then, though, Pryor tries to address the change from a Latin/Celtic speaking populace to an Old English speaking one, and that's where his analogies got twisted. He made comparisons to the triumph of Spanish and Portuguese in South America, but hey, there was an invading force there, and the native cultures were decimated by diseases. Your other readers might not know that, but this one does.
Lukewarm recommendation.