Britain A.D.

Francis Pryor

Why I looked at this book

My interest in the interaction of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of early Britain attracted my attention to this book. It's about a wider span of history than that, but that's OK. and I'm hoping that this book will give an accessible account of this period of history. Other books on this topic have been a bit too much based around reporting the archaeology for my liking. Now Francis Pryor is well known archaeologist (Time Team made sure of that), so maybe this book will have a similar bias, but a first look suggests it might have a bit more analysis of historical events.

First impressions

The focus of the book seems to be archaeology vs history. To many written history is more reliable than inference from archaeological finds, but Pryor doesn't necessarily agree - what goes for written history may have had a political motive, and the archaeological evidence is increasing all the time. Both sides are accused sometimes of just making things up, but a bit of imagination is necessary for understanding the past. I don't think it's exactly what I expected when I first looked at the book, but it promises to be an interesting read.