British Battles 493–937 deals with thirteen conflicts, either locating them correctly or explaining some of their aspects which have puzzled historians. They include the following: Mount Badon (493) at Braydon, Wiltshire; battles of the British hero Arthur (the legendary 'King Arthur') (536–7) in southern Scotland or the borders; 'Degsastan' (603) at Dawyck, on the River Tweed, Scotland; Maserfelth (642) at Forden, on the Welsh border; the Viking victory of 'Alluthèlia' (844) at Bishop Auckland, near Durham; and the English triumph of Brunanburh (937) at Lanchester, also near Durham. British Battles 493–937 is, thus, one of the most revolutionary books ever published on war in Britain and is a valuable resource for battle archeologists and research historians.

British Battles 493–937 deals with thirteen conflicts, either locating them correctly or explaining some of their aspects which have puzzled historians. They include the following: Mount Badon (493) at Braydon, Wiltshire; battles of the British hero Arthur (the legendary 'King Arthur') (536–7) in southern Scotland or the borders; 'Degsastan' (603) at Dawyck, on the River Tweed, Scotland; Maserfelth (642) at Forden, on the Welsh border; the Viking victory of 'Alluthèlia' (844) at Bishop Auckland, near Durham; and the English triumph of Brunanburh (937) at Lanchester, also near Durham. British Battles 493–937 is, thus, one of the most revolutionary books ever published on war in Britain and is a valuable resource for battle archeologists and research historians.

British Battles 493-937 deals with thirteen conflicts, either locating them correctly or explaining some of their aspects which have puzzled historians. They include the following: Mount Badon (493) at Braydon, Wiltshire; battles of the British hero Arthur (the legendary 'King Arthur') (536-7) in southern Scotland or the borders; 'Degsastan' (603) at Dawyck, on the River Tweed, Scotland; Maserfelth (642) at Forden, on the Welsh border; the Viking victory of 'Alluthèlia' (844) at Bishop Auckland, near Durham; and the English triumph of Brunanburh (937) at Lanchester, also near Durham. British Battles 493-937 is, thus, one of the most revolutionary books ever published on war in Britain and is a valuable resource for battle archeologists and research historians.

The Picts were an ancient nation who ruled most of northern and eastern Scotland during the Dark Ages. Despite their historical importance, they remain shrouded in myth and misconception. Absorbed by the kingdom of the Scots in the ninth century, they lost their unique identity, their language and their vibrant artistic culture. Amongst their few surviving traces are standing stones decorated with incredible skill and covered with enigmatic symbols - vivid memorials of a powerful and gifted people who bequeathed no chronicles to tell their story, no sagas to describe the deed of their kings and heroes. In this book Tim Clarkson pieces together the evidence to tell the story of this mysterious people from their emergence in Roman times to their eventual disappearance.

This book presents a new and innovative theory on the origin of the Germanic languages. This theory presents solutions to four pivotal problems in the history of Germanic with critical implications for cultural history: the origin of the Germanic writing system (the Runic alphabet), the genesis of the Germanic strong verbs, the development of the Germanic word order, and etymologies for key elements of the Germanic lexicon. The book proposes that all four problems can be solved if it is hypothesized that over 2,000 years ago the ancestor of all Germanic languages, Proto-Germanic, was in intensive contact with Punic, a Semitic language from the Mediterranean. This scenario is explored by focusing on linguistic data, supported by an interdisciplinary mosaic of evidence. This book is of interest to anyone working on the linguistic and cultural history of the Germanic languages.

It was a catastrophe without precedent in recorded history: for months on end, starting in A.D. 535, a strange, dusky haze robbed much of the earth of normal sunlight. Crops failed in Asia and the Middle East as global weather patterns radically altered. Bubonic plague, exploding out of Africa, wiped out entire populations in Europe. Flood and drought brought ancient cultures to the brink of collapse. In a matter of decades, the old order died and a new world—essentially the modern world as we know it today—began to emerge. In this fascinating, groundbreaking, totally accessible book, archaeological journalist David Keys dramatically reconstructs the global chain of revolutions that began in the catastrophe of A.D. 535, then offers a definitive explanation of how and why this cataclysm occurred on that momentous day centuries ago. The Roman Empire, the greatest power in Europe and the Middle East for centuries, lost half its territory in the century following the catastrophe. During the exact same period, the ancient southern Chinese state, weakened by economic turmoil, succumbed to invaders from the north, and a single unified China was born. Meanwhile, as restless tribes swept down from the central Asian steppes, a new religion known as Islam spread through the Middle East. As Keys demonstrates with compelling originality and authoritative research, these were not isolated upheavals but linked events arising from the same cause and rippling around the world like an enormous tidal wave. Keys's narrative circles the globe as he identifies the eerie fallout from the months of darkness: unprecedented drought in Central America, a strange yellow dust drifting like snow over eastern Asia, prolonged famine, and the hideous pandemic of the bubonic plague. With a superb command of ancient literatures and historical records, Keys makes hitherto unrecognized connections between the "wasteland" that overspread the British countryside and the fall of the great pyramid-building Teotihuacan civilization in Mexico, between a little-known "Jewish empire" in Eastern Europe and the rise of the Japanese nation-state, between storms in France and pestilence in Ireland. In the book's final chapters, Keys delves into the mystery at the heart of this global catastrophe: Why did it happen? The answer, at once surprising and definitive, holds chilling implications for our own precarious geopolitical future. Wide-ranging in its scholarship, written with flair and passion, filled with original insights, Catastrophe is a superb synthesis of history, science, and cultural interpretation.