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The term “Anglo-Saxon” is increasingly contested, and often see as closely aligned to racial prejudice therefore Manco twin approach of exploring linguistic and genetic origins of the peoples that are often referred to as “Anglo-Saxon” should have been more rewarding than I feel this book is.
It is difficult to see who the intended audience really is – it is written as a text book, each chapter ends with a summary page of bullet points, and it is probably too dry for most general readers, but at 200 small pages, full of maps and images it is unlikely to provide the depth of any academic reader would need.
It also feels like it never manages to draw the insights of different perspectives and evidence together to tell a story that is bigger than the sum of its part – disconnected elements are just piled on top of each other.
One point of interest was that the period we sometimes call the Dark Ages is also known as “Völkerwanderung” - the era of wandering of the people.
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