Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read.
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The Birth of the Anglo-Saxons: Three Kings and a History of Britain at the Dawn of the Viking Age by Max Adams
Expected publication: April 1, 2025 by Pegasus Books
A brilliant, authoritative narrative of the golden age of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain by an acclaimed historian of this period.
The eighth century has for too long been a neglected era in British a shadow land between the death of Saint Bede and the triumphs of King Ælfred and the eventual unification of England.
But before the victories of King Ælfred against the Viking invaders, the kingdom of Mercia—spread across a broad swathe of central England—was the reigning power that exercised central political authority for the first time since the Roman Empire. This authority was used to construct trading networks and markets; to develop strong economic, cultural, and political links with the Continent; and to lay the foundations for a system of defense that would be invigorated and reinvented by Ælfred at the end of the ninth century.
Two kings, Æthelbald (716–757) and Offa (757–796), dominated the political landscape of the rising power of Mercia. During their reigns, monasteries became powerhouses of royal patronage, economic enterprise, and trade. Offa constructed his grandiose dyke along the borders of the warlike Welsh Kingdoms and, more subtly, spread his message of political superiority through coinage bearing his image. But Æthelbald and Offa between them built something with an even more substantial legacy—a geography of medieval England. And these two kings engineered a set of tensions between kingship, landholding, and the church that were to play out dramatically at the dawn of the Viking Age.
In this illuminating history of Early Medieval Britain, Max Adams reconnects the worlds of the three kings—Æthelbald, Offa, and Ælfred—in an absorbing study of the landscape, society, and politics of a fascinating century of change.
This just sounds like an amazing history of early medieval Britain and the cover is also gorgeous. I’m super intrigued!
Are you also looking forward to this book? What do you think of it?
Leave links to your Can’t-Wait Wednesday post so I can stop by!
I have read a book on the early Kings of England which featured these and more, I really enjoyed it. Here is my link:
https://girlsatthebookstore.blogspot.com/2025/02/cant-wait-wednesday-bury-our-bones-in.html
The cover is fantastic! I hope you get to read this, it’s definitely a Stephanie book😁
LOVE that cover!
I love medieval history but haven’t read anything about it’s early period. You have me intrigued.
This sounds wonderful!! If ONLY it was available as an audiobook. Thank you for sharing, Stephanie:).
This really does sound amazing, Stephanie. And I agree with the others–what a beautiful cover. I hope you enjoy it when you read it!
Hope you love this one Stephanie!