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Very much appreciate the recommendation. I'm reading (well, listening to) Simon Winder's Germania - the first of a trilogy covering the history of most of west

by Jedd 7y ago

Very much appreciate the recommendation. I'm reading (well, listening to) Simon Winder's Germania - the first of a trilogy covering the history of most of western Europe. It sounds like it may interleave nicely with this work. Simon's style, augmented / exacerbated by the narrator, is delightfully droll -- I thoroughly enjoy it.

gerdesj 7y ago
I've read Germania and it is an absolute belter. I'm a British Army brat and lived for around 10 years in what was West Germany. The old Saxons are a decent lot in my opinion. That book - Germania opened my eyes to just how complicated the history of the European continent is. "Anglo Saxons" reminds us of just how much these islands are intertwined with the continent. "Germania" showed me how much I didn't know about my own sodding history. I knew a Roman geezer was nicknamed Germanicus but nothing about say Mercian kings or Kentish kings or the subtle interplay in the north with the Picts and the Scotii, the Welsh and the west welsh (Cornwall) and other Britons. What we call today Ireland - North Ireland and Eire - and the interplay with what we now call Scotland is another very complicated set of circumstances. We are all aware here in England of King Alfred the Great - Wessex - and might know of King Cnut (Danish) and may be dimly aware of other Kings from the time post Roman (~400AD) until 1066. It's a bit involved. Could I also tender "1000 years of annoying the French" by Stephen Clarke. I've just searched him and it turns out he has quite an oevre. I just picked up that particular book because of the title and a quick read of a few pages. It's a great romp through European history from the perspective of a historian who happens to be British and living in France - his love of both France and Britain is quite apparent and his sense of humour is British. The main focus is France and England but the scope is European. I've also bought "The King in the North" by Max Adams which is about Oswald "Whiteblade" in Northumbria (the region north of the river Humber) in the mid fifth century.
- Jedd 7y ago
  Goodness yes. The introduction to Lotharingia (haven't started that one yet, of course) is insanely compelling: "In AD 843, the three surviving grandsons of the great Emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited what became France, another Germany and the third Lotharingia, the chunk that initially divided the other two chunks: ‘the lands of Lothar’. The dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate." I'm Australian, though lived in the UK for a while, so I appreciate that most of the (rest of the) world has a complex, varied, mostly ugly and impenetrably complicated history that can, if you have a lifetime to consider things, explain why any particular thing is the way that it is ... but similar to your position, it's breathtaking trying to comprehend all the moving pieces over the past couple of thousand years. Stephen Clarke is now on my e-stack of books to read, thank you.
HuShifang 7y ago
Seconded -- read this earlier this year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It also rather radically altered my perception of the "usual" German historical narrative about Prussian militarism etc. Winder's a very humane writer, in addition to a hilarious one. His two follow-ups, Danubia and Lotharingia (the latter of which just got a write-up in the New York Review of Books) are on my to-read list for the new year.

by Jedd 7y ago

gerdesj 7y ago

I've read Germania and it is an absolute belter. I'm a British Army brat and lived for around 10 years in what was West Germany. The old Saxons are a decent lot in my opinion. That book - Germania opened my eyes to just how complicated the history of the European continent is. "Anglo Saxons" reminds us of just how much these islands are intertwined with the continent. "Germania" showed me how much I didn't know about my own sodding history. I knew a Roman geezer was nicknamed Germanicus but nothing about say Mercian kings or Kentish kings or the subtle interplay in the north with the Picts and the Scotii, the Welsh and the west welsh (Cornwall) and other Britons. What we call today Ireland - North Ireland and Eire - and the interplay with what we now call Scotland is another very complicated set of circumstances. We are all aware here in England of King Alfred the Great - Wessex - and might know of King Cnut (Danish) and may be dimly aware of other Kings from the time post Roman (~400AD) until 1066. It's a bit involved. Could I also tender "1000 years of annoying the French" by Stephen Clarke. I've just searched him and it turns out he has quite an oevre. I just picked up that particular book because of the title and a quick read of a few pages. It's a great romp through European history from the perspective of a historian who happens to be British and living in France - his love of both France and Britain is quite apparent and his sense of humour is British. The main focus is France and England but the scope is European. I've also bought "The King in the North" by Max Adams which is about Oswald "Whiteblade" in Northumbria (the region north of the river Humber) in the mid fifth century.

Jedd 7y ago
Goodness yes. The introduction to Lotharingia (haven't started that one yet, of course) is insanely compelling: "In AD 843, the three surviving grandsons of the great Emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited what became France, another Germany and the third Lotharingia, the chunk that initially divided the other two chunks: ‘the lands of Lothar’. The dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate." I'm Australian, though lived in the UK for a while, so I appreciate that most of the (rest of the) world has a complex, varied, mostly ugly and impenetrably complicated history that can, if you have a lifetime to consider things, explain why any particular thing is the way that it is ... but similar to your position, it's breathtaking trying to comprehend all the moving pieces over the past couple of thousand years. Stephen Clarke is now on my e-stack of books to read, thank you.

HuShifang 7y ago

Seconded -- read this earlier this year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It also rather radically altered my perception of the "usual" German historical narrative about Prussian militarism etc. Winder's a very humane writer, in addition to a hilarious one. His two follow-ups, Danubia and Lotharingia (the latter of which just got a write-up in the New York Review of Books) are on my to-read list for the new year.