The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Battle for the Island Kingdom Mention “1066” to any history buff and you will immediately bring to mind the “Year of Three Battles,” in which Vikings, Normans and Anglo-Saxons fought it out for mastery of England. The struggle ended, violently, with the climactic...
Michael Livingston, congratulations on the new book, Crécy. We have a few questions. Jonathan Sumption called Crécy a political catastrophe for the French. Just how big a defeat was it, after all the 100 Yrs War had only begun in 1337, and would continue to be fought...
Congrats on your latest title, At the Gates of Rome. In the introduction to your book, you mention Edward Gibbon’s seminal Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire. How influential is Gibbon, both historically and to your own work, and do we need to move on from his...
It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the...
Don Hollway, Harald plays an all too brief part in the history of these isles but there is so much more to the man. What led you to want to write about him? I first read Hardrada’s story as a boy and thought, “Wow, what a life that guy led!” I always wanted to tell...
King Harald Sigurdsson of Norway, called Hardrada, the Hard Ruler, was a Viking hero straight out of fantasy: an outcast prince who won a fortune, romanced empresses, married a queen, and carved a kingdom for himself with his own blade. He launched the last great...
