Lost Realms : Histories of Britain from the Romans to the Vikings

A beautiful, beautiful book . . . archaeology is changing so much about the way we view the so-called Dark Ages �_� [Williams] is just brilliant at bringing them to light' Rory Stewart on The Rest is Politics From the bestselling author of Viking Britain, a new epic history of our forgotten past. This is the world of Arthur and Urien; of the Picts and Britons and Saxon migration; of magic and war, myth and miracle. In Lost Realms Thomas Williams uncovers the forgotten origins and untimely demise of Britain�_Ts ancient kingdoms: lands that hover in the twilight between history and fable, whose stories hum with gods and miracles, with giants and battles and ruin. Why did some realms �_" like Wessex, Northumbria and Gwynedd �_" prosper while others fell? And how did their communities adapt to the catastrophic changes of their age? Drawing on Britain �_T s ancient landscape and bringing together new archaeological revelations with the few precious fragments of surviving written sources, Williams spectacularly rebuilds a lost past.