Little Kingdoms: An A-Z of Early Medieval BritainAlex HarveyLabel: Pen & Sword Books LtdDescription: Before England Wales and Scotland were created before Alfred the Great and the Great Viking Army before even a raid on Lindisfarne the kingdoms that made up the British Isles were a squabbling kaleidoscopic mosaic of realities. Some centred their livelihood around rivers others dug deep to harvest resources from the ground beneath them. There were kingdoms that straddled the sea others divided by marshes and some that stuck to rugged mountainsides or even caves. All these places remembered now in place-names artefacts and obscure chronicles have become obscured and forgotten in many cases lost entirely. Little Kingdoms peels back the veil on sixty-two unique realms listed alphabetically like a travelogue showcasing the most diverse corners of Early Medieval England sandwiched in that tantalising gap between the Roman and Viking periods. By using a mixture of disciplines folklore and a little imagination all sixty-two (and many more besides) are brought to life through careful detective work inventive illustrations and detailed maps highlighting the multicultural people of this island and their many many origins.* Imagine a time when Harrow-on-the-Hill was crowned with a pagan temple when the commercial heart of London beat not in the City but at the Aldwych when giant zombies patrolled Strathclyde and when the Fenlands of Cambridgeshire were a single swamp and the home of eel-wranglers egret-catchers and bog-miners. This is the world to which Alex Harvey transports us in this powerfully evocative and clever account of Britain in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal. Made up of more than sixty micro-histories of the places which flourished between the fifth and tenth centuries his book is both a time machine and an A to Z of a lost age. But it is much more besides. By starting with the little kingdoms Alex Harvey reverses the standard narrative which interprets Dark Age Britain through the lens of what it was to become. You will never see the Anglo-Saxon world in the same light and you will probably never again describe it as Anglo-Saxon but instead as a multiplicity of overlapping cultures languages and myths of origin. - Martyn Rady Masaryk Professor Emeritus of Central European History at UCL and author of The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe * Much of the early medieval period can seem impenetrable - place-names difficult to pin down now snippets of fact immersed in a soup of myth and legend - and it would take a brave person to try and make sense of it all. Alex Harvey has taken on the challenge and produced a book in my opinion like no other and furthermore a book that is easy to read and digest. - David Johnson author of New Light on the Dark Ages in North Craven* This book is a veritable treasure hoard of information derived from archaeology and historical chronicles place-name studies and folklore Old English poetry and saints’ lives. Alex Harvey dispels the myth that early medieval Britain was a heptarchy the home of a people easily categorizable by ethnicity or nationality. Instead Harvey breathes life into a sweeping miscellany of little kingdoms some familiar and prominent in our early medieval histories others mysterious and elusive. Whether it’s in reports of strange weather (mole rain) or references to undead islands (a misinterpreted place-name) the reader of Little Kingdoms will find more than a little to explore in a richly complex medieval Britain. - Hana Videen author of The Deor Hord: An Old English Bestiary* Post-Roman Britain is a land of myth legend and wonder for many and a true dark age for others. A place which could easily sit in the Middle Earth of J.R.R. Tolkien not surprising given it was the inspiration for many of his best-known plot lines. Yet here Alex Harvey skilfully brings this little-known period of British history to vibrant life showing in striking detail how events then set in place the multiple identities of Britain today. Using true academic rigour matched with a wonderful ability to tell a story he introduces readers to kingdoms large and small some only short-lived but many still recognisable today within the political geography of Britain. In that sense this is also an important book for our age when self-identification is at the forefront of the national debate. - Simon Elliott author of Sea Eagles of Empire* Fun readable and informative Alex Harvey’s Little Kingdoms is a celebration of some of the most obscure and odd kingdoms fiefdoms territories and settlements of British history. Infused with enthusiasm and written in a conversational tone this is the type of pop history I love to read. - Steve Brusatte professor of palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh and New York best-selling author of The Rise & Fall of the
