The Battle of Hastings: Sources and Interpretations (Warfare in History, 1)

This book, simply put, is one of the most important resources ever put together for the study of 1066, Hastings and the Norman conquest. It is the resource that no one attempting to study that period can afford to be without. It provides every word written about the conflict in the original contemporary and near-contemporary sources, translated into modern English, of course. Most of the documents it includes are available out there in one form or another, but are prohibitively expensive to acquire one at a time, and require a lot of work to find. This book was, and remains, an incredible and unique resource to the 1066 enthusiast, and is a "Must Buy".There are so many fascinating things to learn from this book that it'd take way, way more than an Amazon review to describe it all. At the highest level, I could summarize what I got out of it thusly: there really was very little written and documented at the time about 1066 (or at least, that made it down to our time). Couple of sentences here, a few pages there. Most of it was written well after Hastings, and by people who weren't eye-witnesses to it. Almost all of the books, movies, and academic analysis done in the following thousand years is based on these sources, and there's just not a lot of source material. Much of it is contradictory, obviously very subjective, and just ... sparse. It makes you realize that we know very, very little about 1066 and have been making gigantic assumptions and guesses about it ever since.Again: this book is an incredible resource, and should be the first thing that anyone interested in getting beyond pop-history and into serious learning about 1066 should purchase.

Very Interesting book. Learned some new details and history leading up to the battle itself. Good buy!

It was ok, but not the book that I was hopping for. Wanted the Marine Corps book on Operation Hastings, VietNam 1966.

I absolutely love this book. It has multiple viewpoints from many different sources. This is a very important part of history. The battle of Hastings is what shaped the future of Western Europe and it is what formed the English. Anyone interested in the middle ages needs to read this.

I have a longstanding interest in early medieval Europe and the Norman conquest of England (it wasn't really a cultural "invasion" at the beginning) comes right at the end of that period, just before the introduction of feudalism and chivalry and all that. I also have a strong background in military history, so I've naturally read a good deal about the Battle of Hastings over the years. October 14, 1066, was a key day in the history of Western Europe, . . . although the issue of "key battles" in historical method and interpretation gets kind of a working-over here. The thing is, from the title, I rather expected this to be a collection of essays in reconsideration of the political lead-up, tactical details, and outcome of the battle -- something similar to the annual "Battle Conference" proceedings, most of which I've read -- but it's not that at all. Instead, it's a collection of readings from the past, the sort of volume produced solely for the use of college students who are beginners to the subject, in order to give them a running start on the major issues, the original sources on which they are based, and their interpretation by past experts. So we have here a series of excerpts from William of Poitiers, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and so on, followed by a dozen essays or book-chapters going as far back as Edward Freeman and including offerings from Chibnall, Hume, and other well-known scholars (and including Morillo himself -- one of the privileges of being the editor of a product like this). All this may be of interest to the grad student just entering the field of Anglo-Norman studies, but it unfortunately has little to offer anyone who has been reading in the subject for very many years.

A delightful piece of history writing. It is like taking a college history class and having all the main historical records put before you so you may do your own analysis. I wish there were more books like this out there. Being a lover of history, but not an historian, I was spell bound by the differing views provided and their analysis.

Good collection of writings. Not light casual reading.

using this for my A-Level History coursework based on sources. It is jam packed with them as well as interpretations of each of the sources. This is perfect for anyone looking for resources on the battle of hastings!

Ein tolles Buch, das sich mit einigen wichtigen Quellen zum Englischen Großereignis im Jahr 1066 auseinendersetzt. Sehr durchdacht zusammengefasst und editiert. Sehr empfehlenswert!