The Anglo-Saxon World

By: Nicholas J. Higham, Martin J. Ryan

Narrated by: Mike Cooper

The Anglo-Saxon period, stretching from the fifth to the late eleventh century, begins with the Roman retreat from the Western world and ends with the Norman takeover of England. Between these epochal events, many of the contours and patterns of English life that would endure for the next millennium were shaped. In this authoritative work, N. J. Higham and M. J. Ryan reexamine Anglo-Saxon England in the light of new research in disciplines as wide ranging as historical genetics, paleobotany, archaeology, literary studies, art history, and numismatics. The result is the definitive introduction to the Anglo-Saxon world.

The Anglo-Saxon period witnessed the birth of the English people, the establishment of Christianity, and the development of the English language. With an extraordinary cast of characters (Alfred the Great, the Venerable Bede, King Cnut), a long list of artistic and cultural achievements (Beowulf, the Sutton Hoo ship-burial finds, the Bayeux Tapestry), and multiple dramatic events (the Viking invasions, the Battle of Hastings), the Anglo-Saxon era lays legitimate claim to having been one of the most important in Western history.

©2013 Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan (P)2022 Tantor

Awesome listen

This was a very informative book, providing great detail and citation. I would highly recommend this for any Anglophile.

Knowing the Anglo-Saxons

Knowing the Anglo-Saxons was the goal of giving this audiobook a try. It is a skillfully assembled collection of essays. The narration is fabulous. At the end of it I feel that I know who the Anglo-Saxons were and are a little better, and who they weren’t much more so.
Would have liked more information on the continental origins of the Anglo-Saxons end
their residual ancestors, but that maybe that’s for another day.

Reference, Not Narrative

tldr: If what you want is an introductory graduate-level survey of Anglo-Saxon archaeology and history, this is a decent, but not perfect, entry. If you are a layperson seeking an accessible introduction to the Anglo-Saxon world, this isn't the right book for you.

This book was largely a long listing of facts about the Anglo-Saxons. Large blocks of time are given to dry details like transitions in coin production or speculation about whether a particular style of jewelry originated with the Celts or Anglo-Saxons. Comparatively little time is given to describing Anglo-Saxon society and ways of life, or to the overall story of Anglo-Saxon history. This evidence-heavy, narrative-light approach seems targeted at scholarly readers; this text reads to me like an English History 501 textbook. I was able to read it without trouble, but I had been looking for a lighter-weight introduction to the Anglo-Saxons that would do more of the synthetic work for me. This isn't that book.

Higham & Ryan also have a tendency to minimize the individuals in English history. Great kings, as they tell it, were not great so much as the beneficiaries of great circumstances. Bad kings were really the victims of bad circumstances. Religious leaders such as Bede were really responding to inevitable social circumstances, not acting out of sincere belief. Various conquerors cannot be credited with their own success; they were simply in the right place at the right time.

Of course, this reflects the modern rejection of the so-called "great man theory" of history, and this rejection is a good thing in moderation. The near-total rejection of personal capacity and conviction represented here, however, goes farther in this direction than I find credible. The best reading of history is one which factors in BOTH broad social, economic, and political trends AND the peculiarities of certain influential actors; Higham & Ryan seem to me to be as one-sided as the older style of history which made the people all-in-all.

The narration succeeded at making the book better than it would have been if I read it hardcopy; it brought some life to a necessarily dry text.

Textbook textbook

Next time I'll more likely heed previous reviewers who focus on a book sounding more like a staid, dry textbook than an interesting take on history. I'm fascinated by this period of English history and I really wanted to like this book but I never did make it through one whole chapter. And while I do like the narrator's understated voice, for such dry material it just doesn't fit well.