Sunday 9 September 2012

Book Learning # 80 The History of England Volume 1. Foundation, by Peter Ackroyd.

Hey there summer read.
How you doing? How was your summer?
Oh look, I'm sorry about the first part, the part where I casually picked you up , read you for a while but then dumped you for something more exciting.

But who's laughing now?

I got bored of the other book (very quickly as it happened) and came grovelling back to you.

You had already told me about the infrastructure of ancient England and how cosmopolitan it was before the Romans landed. You had told me about the Norman conquest and made me marvel that it was the last time this island had been successfully invaded.

After we got back together you made me rethink a lot of casually held ideas and prejudices about the middle ages. About religion and hygiene. I loved reading about the Black death (but I have always been into that crazy stuff). You took me right up to the death of Henry VII and the beginning of what my history teacher always called 'the early modern age'.
in truth, I'm just glad you took me back. I really enjoyed you.

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