Lars Brownworth

This very entertaining history book covers about 300 years during which the Normans were very important in making Western Europe a prominent part of the world. A lot happened during this time and it seems there is a new war on every page, when local and national leaders took every opportunity to try to grab land from weaker neighbours.

I learned a lot about the Normans that I did not know. For instance, there were two very important Norman nations. There was Normandy which conquered England, but there was also Sicily and southern Italy. The Norman leaders were very colourful characters with wild behaviour, but also in many instances forward-looking with a will to unite, reform and improve their countries, which has led to a more stable and progressive Europe, which otherwise could have been outcompeted by the Middle East and the Byzantine empire.… (more)

Lars Brownworth (I kept wanting to say “Brownsworth” instead of “Brownworth”) did a really good job in writing this book. Although, I feel like this is more of an intro to the history of the Vikings rather than a full on history of this interesting group of people. I’ve been learning about the Vikings in my medieval class at my guest university (I’m an exchange student), so it was really nice to have this as a supplement to all of the info I got from that class.
The Vikings have started to become a recent interest for me, and I’d really like to add more books about the Vikings to my bookshelf.
As I mentioned, Brownworth did a good job in writing this book: he kept it interesting and engaging for me, which I really enjoyed.
It’s a really good book to get an intro to the Vikings and to add to your Viking knowledge.… (more)