I picked up this book on the basis of its subtitle “Journey through the dark ages”. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently listening to two history-related podcasts; one on the history of Britain and one on the history of the English language. The podcasts do go into the Middle Ages (I’m there right now) and I wanted to learn more about the time.

In the Land of Giants is part-travelogue, part history. Max Adams goes on ten long journeys (and several shorter ones, which appear as interludes) and talks about the history of the places that he travels through. It’s a lovely book that pulled me between past and present.

What I learnt from this book is that while we don’t have as much knowledge about the Middle Ages (or the ‘Dark Ages’), historians are learning more with new technologies. Also, that there were several historical Arthurs on which the legend could be based – apparently there’s an Arthur of the north and one of the south.

I really like how the book is written – It’s in third person with only one conversation. Everything else is reported indirectly. The result is that it’s incredibly easy to move from the present day to the past with very little disruption. As Adams travels through Britain, he talks about the history behind the various places he passes by and brings the reader back into the past.

There is a lot of history in this book and I am so glad that I bought this instead of borrowing it. I’ve re-read some of the chapters and I realised that there are a lot of things that I missed on the first round of reading (even with me reading slower than usual due to the amount of information). I’ll definitely be rereading this (especially the chapter about York) in the near future to learn more about Britain in the Middle Ages.