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Title: Domesday: A Search for the Roots of England by Michael Wood ISBN: 0-8160-1832-4 Publisher: Facts on File, Inc. Pub. Date: April, 1988 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating for any anthropologist, linguist, or historian!
Comment: I stumbled across this book as I was perusing the European History shelf. As a high school French Teacher, I look for ways to introduce my students to French history. I also try to instill an awareness of the nature of language, and the etymology of English. In this process, I have become aware of the Latin, French, and German and Scandinavian roots of our own language. Until I read this book, I did not understand how the English that we speak evolved from so many seemingly disparate cultures. Michael Wood did a masterful job of clarifying this for me, while drawing me into a fascinating account of English history.
Wood opens with the purpose and content of the Domesday document, which in and of itself would be dry and dusty. Because the Norman Conquest was such a pivotal point in the history of England, many British historians have built on the premise that post-Conquest civilization was actually created and defined by the incoming French ruling class. Wood challenges this position, tracing the roots and institutions of English medieval society back to influences which pre-date the Norman Conquest by more than a thousand years.
As an anthropologist, Wood uses a number of tools to reconstruct the development of this social fabric. Any one of these tools - tax records, geographical analyses, lists of village names - if considered in isolation, would be as opaque as Domesday itself. But with the insight and skill of a master storyteller, Wood uses clues provided by their data to sketch the evolution of a people, and then to paint an engaging portrait of the common man in 1086. Along the way, he introduces us to the native, colonizing, mercenary, and migratory populations alike: Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Celts, Romans, Danes, French. We watch as the dynamics of domination, subjugation and assimilation characterize their interactions with one another. And we conclude with him that the Conquest was not the beginning of civilization, as some would have it, but the interruption and re-routing of the history of a very old, already well-defined society. Further, it is a testimony to the strength of that society that it survived and thrived in the wake of the devastation of the Conquest, maintaining the essential fabric of long-held beliefs and institutions.
I find that many of my students share my fascination with the historical background behind the etymology of our modern-day languages. While I do not use this book directly in the foreign language classroom (it is an expository text), I have found it very helpful to give me a solid foundation for understanding the curiosities I try to share with my students. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the link between history and the development of language.
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Title: In Search of the Dark Ages by Michael Wood ISBN: 0816047022 Publisher: Checkmark Books Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: In Search of England: Journeys into the English Past by Michael Wood ISBN: 0520232186 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 06 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Shakespeare by Michael Wood ISBN: 0465092640 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Conquistadors by Michael Wood ISBN: 0520236912 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 04 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: In the Footsteps of Alexander The Great: A Journey from Greece to Asia by Michael Wood ISBN: 0520231929 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 06 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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