$26.99
- Paperback
400 pages
- Release Date
23 September 2015
Summary
A magnetic book on the North Sea brimming with rollicking adventures, vivid characters and witty observations.
Between the fall of Rome and the dawn of the Enlightenment, northern Europe went from barbaric outpost to being the centre of everything, building the world we know. We have ignored its impact, but the reason is the North Sea. Boats carried food and raw materials but also new ideas and information. Seafarers raided and killed but also settled and coupled, bringing the tastes …
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780241963838 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0241963834 |
| Author: | Michael Pye |
| Publisher: | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Imprint: | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 400 |
| Release Date: | 23 September 2015 |
| Weight: | 294g |
| Dimensions: | 196mm x 129mm x 25mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
It’s fascinating to understand [these] historical trends and ideas
It’s fascinating to understand [these] historical trends and ideas – Jeremy Corbyn
An utterly beguiling journey into the dark ages of the north sea. A complete revelation … Pye writes like a dream. Magnificent – Jerry Brotton, author of ‘A History of the World in Twelve Maps’
A closely-researched and fascinating characterisation of the richness of life and the underestimated interconnections of the peoples all around the medieval and early modern North Sea. A real page-turner – Chris Wickham, author of ‘The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000’
Elegant writing and extraordinary scholarship … Miraculous – Hugh Aldersey-Williams, author of ‘Periodic Tales’ and ‘Anatomies’
Splendid. A heady mix of social, economic, and intellectual history, written in an engaging style. It offers a counterpoint to the many studies of the Mediterranean, arguing for the importance of the North Sea. Exciting, fun, and informative – Michael Prestwich, Professor of History, Durham University
Brilliant. Pye is a wonderful historian … bringing history to life like no one else. Who knew that the Irish invented punctuation? – Terry Jones
A masterly storyteller * Vogue *
Pye has a great journalist’s eye for a story and the telling anecdote as well as a great historian’s ability to place it in the bigger picture. Here he fuses those talents in a hugely eclectic study of the very first stirrings of modernity in northern Europe
Pye draws on a dizzying array of documentary and archaeological scholarship, which he works together in surprising ways … He advances on several fronts at once, following the overlapping currents of customary, religious and empirical ways of thinking. He writes about difficult concepts with vivid details and stories, often jump-cutting from exposition to drama like a film. It’s complicated, but fun * Economist *
Hugely enjoyable. it is the measure of Pye’s achievement that he can breathe life into the traders of seventh-century Frisia or the beguines of late-medieval Flanders as well as into his more celebrated subjects … Grey the waters of the North Sea may be; but Pye has successfully dyed them with a multitude of rich colours – Tom Holland * Guardian *
About The Author
Michael Pye
Michael Pye has written eleven previous books, translated into eleven languages, including two British bestsellers and two New York Times ‘Notable Books of the Year’. He took a First and various prizes in Modern History at Oxford, and was then for many years a highly successful journalist, columnist and broadcaster in London and New York. He now lives between London and rural Portugal.
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