Never Greater Slaughter: Brunanburh and the Birth of England, by Michael Livingston, Osprey Publishing/Bloomsbury Publishing, Oxford, U.K., and New York, 2021, $28
Building on his groundbreaking 2011 book The Battle of Brunanburh: A Case Study, and supported by the local Wirral Archaeology group, American historian Michael Livingston makes his case for the location at Bromborough, north of Chester, England, of this highly significant, if near mythical, 937 battle (see related story, P. 20) amid the Viking invasions. In his foreword Bernard Cornwell, bestselling author of the celebrated Last Kingdom novels, which culminate at Brunanburh, deems the battle as foundational to England as Yorktown was to America. He also finds it ironic an American has emerged as the foremost interpreter of “England’s battle”—or in Livingston’s words, “England’s bloody day of coming of age.”
Livingston argues against using the term “Dark Ages,” saying it reflects more on our ignorance than on those who lived in that era. While conceding the culture shock, especially to churches, that attended the arrival of Viking raiders and invaders, he challenges other
