The Maker of England: The Lost Life of King Athelstan

Michael Wood

Jun 2027 · Random House

Ebook

336

Pages

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This book will become available on June 10, 2027. You will not be charged until it is released.

About this ebook

It was only by chance that Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great and born to a woman of ‘inferior birth’, was accepted as king of Wessex and Mercia. Yet two years later, in 926 AD, he conquered the last Viking stronghold and became the first to unite Anglo-Saxon England under a single crown. The Maker of England recounts the extraordinary life of the ambitious ruler who forged a nation.

Using the widest range of sources, including a lost tenth-century biography identified here for the first time, Michael Wood vividly recreates Athelstan’s childhood, education and adolescence, and the bitter succession struggle that preceded his fourteen-year reign. We learn about the young king who conceived a visionary plan for an ‘empire of the world of Britain’ that would foster peace in all of Europe. We meet a ‘ring-giver and lord of warriors’ who saw protecting the poor as his foremost duty, and whose innovations in law, coinage, learning, culture and assembly politics endure to this day.

Rich with original insights, The Maker of England makes the case for seeing Athelstan as a presiding genius of the English state. A bold, compelling biography, it restores him to his rightful place in the grand narrative of British history.

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About the author

Michael Wood is an internationally acclaimed historian, filmmaker and broadcaster, and the author of several books including The Story of England (2010) and three Sunday Times number one bestsellers. He was the presenter of BBC’s In Search of the Dark Ages and has also made some 120 documentary films, including The Story of India ( ’the gold standard of documentary history making” - Wall Street Journal). A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a recipient of the Historical Association’s Medlicott Medal and the British Academy President’s Medal for services to history and outreach, he received an OBE in 2021. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester.

Michael Wood is an internationally acclaimed historian, filmmaker and broadcaster, and the author of several books including The Story of England (2010) and three Sunday Times number one bestsellers. He was the presenter of BBC’s In Search of the Dark Ages and has also made some 120 documentary f...

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