Product Description

The two-and-a-half centuries after 1066 were momentous ones in the history of Britain. In 1066, England was conquered for the last time. The Anglo-Saxon ruling class was destroyed and and the English became a subject race, dominated by a Norman-French dynasty and aristocracy. This book shows how the English domination of the kingdom was by no means a foregone conclusion. The struggle for mastery in the book's title is in reality the struggle for different masteries within Great Britain. The book weaves together the histories of England, Scotland and Wales in a new way and argues that all three, in their different fashions, were competing for domination

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114425 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

About the Author
David Carpenter is Professor of Medieval History at King's College London. He is the author of THE BATTLES OF LEWES AND EVESHAM and THE REIGN OF HENRY III.

Customer Reviews

What a tour de force!
It takes some time to digest this book because it offers such a wealth of information on more than 500 densely printed pages (not counting the bibliography and the index). It starts with the Norman invaders crossing the Channel (providing us also with a glimpse of the situation in Britain prior to the Conquest), tells of a realm straddling the Channel and kings (e.g. Henry II) at times more focused on the continent than on England. Scottland and Wales are treated as separate entities (which they were until Edward I changed the situation) and covered in detail. Irish history (as far as it is intertwinded with British history) is not neglected. We learn about the changes in rulership, the gradual development of parliament, the impact of royal decisions and actions upon all stratas of society and the interactions between kings and not only their barons but also the knights and the burghers who gradually gained in importance.
The history of a country is always the history of its rulers, too, but in this book it's not so much their person/personality which is the focus of attention, we see them as part of a whole which they only managed to shape to a certain degree and which sometimes developed a life of its own which the ruler no longer managed to control effectively (e.g. John, Henry III).
The book is good to read, very fluently written, but requires one's full attention because it is so cram-full with facts. A glossary would have been helpful.
Invaluable for anyone interested in that period in history.

The Struggle For Interesting History
In terms of information about the period, you can't go far wrong with this volume. It's balanced, detailed about all aspects of its subject and fairly exhaustive, although it does tend to focus on some periods too extensively to the detriment of others.

The reign of Richard I is summarised far too quickly for instance; understandably, perhaps, since he spent almost all of his rule outside Britain, but for pure entertainment a fuller account would have certainly livened up the text somewhat. Herein lies the problem, and one common with most written history; it takes a fascinating subject, and through academic constraints makes it not all that interesting.

There is much to be admired here, but the style of prose is so predictable it hurts, with all the mandatory cliches ('of course', 'hardly', 'as we have seen' etc). It would really help this work as a readable text if he expanded on many of the stories he teases at, and interspersed the facts, statistics and 'proper history' with details of rumours and scandals and love affairs and chivalry which were such a major part of the period.

Overall, a solid purchase and excellent introduction to the topic. This is a highly accurate academic work, but decidedly dull and unambitious in terms of entertainment and readability.

The real history of Britain.
I'll forget the propoganda fed to me in my youth (b1941) there is enough in here to be able to class the Angevin kings alongside the Lehman brothers for greed, ambition and self agrandisment, its heavy going but places the word 'Noble' at the bottom of the finer things to be descended from.