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'From Tintagel and tin-mining to saints and slave markets, from alcohol and King Arthur to boat burials and beavers, here are the realities of life in the sixth century AD, based squarely on archeological and historical evidence.' (Charles Osborne SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
'Anyone who loves to hate a particular corner of these islands will warm to this witty and delightfully prejudiced guide book... It may read like a novel but Simon Young substantiates all his seeming flights of fancy with historical references.' (TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT )
'A highly entertaining and imaginative guide... A highly unusual presentation of life in a fascinating period of British history.' (THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE )
'Anyone who loves to hate a particular corner of these islands will warm to this witty and delightfully prejudiced guide book... It may read like a novel but Simon Young substantiates all his seeming flights of fancy with historical references.' (TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT )
'A highly entertaining and imaginative guide... A highly unusual presentation of life in a fascinating period of British history.' (THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE )
Belfast Telegraph
'Entertaining and informative... It throws new light on the mysterious Dark Ages'.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
How do you make history interesting? TV programme "Time Team" is one brilliant format but a book can't easily reproduce the challenging enthusiasm of Tony Robinson. Some authors tell it straight but rely on the quality of their writing to get them through - Robin Lane Fox, Michael Wood and Tom Holland "Crossing the Rubicon" are examples. Having browsed their efforts in bookshops I just couldn't imagine wading through 400+ pages of the stuff.
The format here is very different - the book is written as a modern translation of a Byzantine scholar writing a guide-book to Britain in 500AD. Hearing it from a scholar doesn't sound very promising so the author does several things to keep it your interest.
First, he gives the scholar a gossipy and arrogant character - this can grate a bit (he is a tremendous snob) but it injects lots of colour and makes the text very easy to read.
Second, the scholar bases his guide-book in part on the report of an expedition from his country that visited Britain 20 years before - they tour round gathering information and getting into all sorts of scrapes, many of which involved in the death of one of them in various ways. This is great device because it allows for first-hand accounts of different events.
Third, Stephen Young, the "true" author, contains his knowledge within the writing and only occasionally feels the need to back this up with a footnote that refers to a book or article.
At times he stands accused of trying bit too hard to popularise the subject going for the quirky when the commonplace would be more interesting (e.g. the habit of offering guests your nipple to suck when we would shake hands is highlighted again and again and again, but we don't find out much about what people had to eat).
Each chapter covers an area of Britain and within this there are around four specific places the expedition visited. There's a real selection, from palaces to villages and my personal favourites, the ruins of Roman fortresses and towns. This breaks up the text a bit but it makes it very good for reading in a train or underground where stations do not always conveniently coincide with chapter endings.
Probably the weakest aspect is that the expedition never become more than nameless people until they die (if you ever saw the original Star Trek on TV you will understand what I mean by red-shirted cannon-fodder, the character introduced for one episode to die in some unpleasant way). The expedition do not feature as characters to any extent so this is an annoyance rather than a problem and it shouldn't mar your enjoyment.
Overall, this was an informative book written in a really enjoyable and entertaining way. The author is trying lots of things to keep the material interesting and some of them don't quite work this is such a fresh and energetic way to tell history that I really look forward to his next book. Very, very good.
The format here is very different - the book is written as a modern translation of a Byzantine scholar writing a guide-book to Britain in 500AD. Hearing it from a scholar doesn't sound very promising so the author does several things to keep it your interest.
First, he gives the scholar a gossipy and arrogant character - this can grate a bit (he is a tremendous snob) but it injects lots of colour and makes the text very easy to read.
Second, the scholar bases his guide-book in part on the report of an expedition from his country that visited Britain 20 years before - they tour round gathering information and getting into all sorts of scrapes, many of which involved in the death of one of them in various ways. This is great device because it allows for first-hand accounts of different events.
Third, Stephen Young, the "true" author, contains his knowledge within the writing and only occasionally feels the need to back this up with a footnote that refers to a book or article.
At times he stands accused of trying bit too hard to popularise the subject going for the quirky when the commonplace would be more interesting (e.g. the habit of offering guests your nipple to suck when we would shake hands is highlighted again and again and again, but we don't find out much about what people had to eat).
Each chapter covers an area of Britain and within this there are around four specific places the expedition visited. There's a real selection, from palaces to villages and my personal favourites, the ruins of Roman fortresses and towns. This breaks up the text a bit but it makes it very good for reading in a train or underground where stations do not always conveniently coincide with chapter endings.
Probably the weakest aspect is that the expedition never become more than nameless people until they die (if you ever saw the original Star Trek on TV you will understand what I mean by red-shirted cannon-fodder, the character introduced for one episode to die in some unpleasant way). The expedition do not feature as characters to any extent so this is an annoyance rather than a problem and it shouldn't mar your enjoyment.
Overall, this was an informative book written in a really enjoyable and entertaining way. The author is trying lots of things to keep the material interesting and some of them don't quite work this is such a fresh and energetic way to tell history that I really look forward to his next book. Very, very good.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I liked this book a lot but I think your other reviewers go a bit over the top. In fact, if Amazon had let me I would have given it four and a half stars. The problem is that Young in describing his trip around Britain uses fairly garish colours to paint the scenery. We hear a lot about the weirder sides of life. But perhaps not enough about real every day living. Still it is a very enjoyable read and the notes at the back are compendious if you want to check up on the facts. I also wondered if sometimes in painting the Britons and Irish as a savage bunch Young was not enjoying himself a bit too much... The best part of the book is without doubt the section on Ireland.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
My husband got this book on the quiet - it's a review copy don't tell Amazon! He gave it to me thinking it was a novel. Actually it is a novel but all the facts in it are based on historical sources - or so the sources say. It is also written in a really entertaining way. I laughed out loud about four times. Lots of amazing fact about Dark Age Britain and Ireland including the dreadful Irish nipple suckers and the professional farters and the dodgy Anglo-Saxon riddle tellers. My mistake was to start reading this on Monday evening. I should have waited for the weekend as I only got to sleep about five! Really, really good. My only criticism would be that some of the maps were not very clear.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Still In The Dark
AD 500 is a fictional travelogue written by Greek scholars from Constantinople. It attempts to provide a witty but informative guide to the British Isles in the year 500. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Neil Lennon
banal history
having being hoodwinked by the synopsis for this book i was disappointed by the poor continuity of the so called historical story and felt a great subject matter had been hi-jacked... Read more
Published on 11 July 2006 by a briton
WOW
a real surpise. I bought it because of the reference to king arthur. However, king arthur is the least interesting thing in this book. Read more
Published on 16 April 2005 by "stevekennedybrownnose"
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