The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 20 February 1998
by David Howarth
This is an enormously engaging history of that pivotal year in English history, in which William, Duke of Normandy, invaded to claim the crown from King Harold. It is a brief book, a mere 201 pages (in its Penguin version), but it tells the story with a personal style and rich with realistic interpretation of events. Given skewed contemporary accounts, including the Bayeux Tapestry, Howarth does an intelligent job of bringing the middle ages to life as accurately as possible, from a brief appearance of comet Halley, to the fateful Battle of Hastings.