King Alfred the Great
With his military prowess, administrative skills, and promotion of learning, Alfred is perhaps the most revered of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Yet, much of our knowledge about him is based on fragmentary and unreliable chronicles from a turbulent age when fact and legend constantly mingled. Smyth, a medievalist at England's Kent University, provides a thorough, slow-moving, but often engrossing reexamination of Alfred's life and his significance in the larger context of northern Europe in the ninth century. Occasionally, the character of Alfred and the dynamism of his accomplishment are drowned out by the sheer volume of detail provided; still, Smyth generally succeeds in integrating the man with his times. General readers will probably find this work a bit overwhelming; however, medieval scholars and amateurs with a love of English history will find much here to delight them.Jay Freeman