This biography of Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons (871-899), combines a sensitive reading of the primary sources with a careful evaluation of the most recent scholarly research on the history and archaeology of ninth-century England. Alfred emerges from the pages of this biography as a great warlord, an effective and inventive ruler, and a passionate scholar whose piety and intellectual curiosity led him to sponsor a cultural and spiritual renaissance. Alfred's victories on the battlefield and his sweeping administrative innovations not only preserved his native Wessex from viking conquest, but began the process of political consolidation that would culminate in the creation of the kingdom of England. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England strips away the varnish of later interpretations to recover the historical Alfredpragmatic, generous, brutal, pious, scholarly within the context of his own age.
A major new title in the Penguin Monarchs series In his fascinating new book in the Penguin Monarchs series, Richard Abels examines the long and troubled reign of Aethelred II the 'Unraed', the 'Ill-Advised'. It is characteristic of Aethelred's reign that its greatest surviving work of literature, the poem The Battle of Maldon, should be a record of heroic defeat. Perhaps no ruler could have stemmed the encroachment of wave upon wave of Viking raiders, but Aethelred will always be associated with that failure. Richard Abels is Professor Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy. He is the author of Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England and Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
This volume includes a translation of the major prose works, several of the ascribed lyrics and a selection of the commentaries written in English by this fourteenth-century (c. 1300-1349) English mystical writer and hermit.
As a long-time fan of rock and a resident of Enid, Oklahoma, Richard Galbraith has attended countless concerts since the early ‘70s, and documented most of them with his photography. Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and Black Sabbath (among many others) have all passed through the lens of Mr. Galbraith. In his first-ever photo book, ‘Richard Galbraith Photography Presents KISS,’ the reader is offered a glimpse of almost every single major concert the masked quartet played in Oklahoma from 1976 through 1986 (close to 100 never-before-seen pix), along with notes from Richard. Get ready to rock!
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