Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors by Peter Ackroyd (PDF)

Description

The first book in Peter Ackroyd’s history of England series, which has since been followed up with two more installments, Tudors and Rebellion.In Foundation, the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England’s prehistory to the death, in 1509, of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country’s most distant past–a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house–and describes in rich prose the successive waves of invaders who made England English, despite being themselves Roman, Viking, Saxon, or Norman French.With his extraordinary skill for evoking time and place and his acute eye for the telling detail, Ackroyd recounts the story of warring kings, of civil strife, and foreign wars. But he also gives us a vivid sense of how England’s early people lived: the homes they built, the clothes the wore, the food they ate, even the jokes they told. All are brought vividly to life in this history of England through the narrative mastery of one of Britain’s finest writers.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Anyone who loves the landscape and history of England (as I do), will certainly revel in Peter Ackroyd’s FOUNDATION, a history of the English nation from its misty and earliest past to the death of its first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. The volume is, by the necessity imposed by known historical knowledge, built principally around the reigns of the country’s sovereigns beginning in the post-Roman Anglo-Saxon era. As the author states:“We may grow weary of the life and death of kings but in truth, for an historical account of medieval England, there is no other sure or certain touchstone.”Ackroyd approaches the task of defining England from two perspectives. Firstly, the coalescence of governance into a centralized bureaucratic framework as a result of or in reaction to the (mis)rule of a succession of rulers with the caveat:“… the origin of most worthy institutions can hardly bear examination. All is muddled and uncertain. The writing of history is often another way of defining chaos.”And secondly, the evolution of England’s people into a society of remarkable continuity as acknowledged by the author:“Those who pursue the process of living are those who create the history and traditions of the country in a million unacknowledged ways; they form the language of expression, and they preserve the stability of the land.”“From the beginning we find evidence of a deep continuity that is the legacy of an unimaginably distant past … The nation itself represents the nexus of custom with custom, the shifting patterns of habitual activity. Continuity, rather than change, is the measure of the country.”The reader cannot help but be struck by the fact that the feudal system, a hierarchical and pyramidal layering of social strata from serf to king held together by the cement of obligations and allegiances, only really worked under the management of strong kingships, such as those (in particular following the Conquest in 1066) of Henry II, Edward I, Edward III and Henry V, but dissolving into anarchy under the mismanagement of weak ones such as those of Stephen, John, Edward II, Richard II, Edward IV and Henry VI. It’s no accident that strong kings were invariably great warriors and leaders of men and, in their absence …“Political life had always been a form of gang warfare, in a scramble for land and riches.”“Land was in fact the single most important cause of violence and social dissension.”Yet, humans being human, life was much as it is now sounding like any day in the contemporary world …“It was … a world of plots and machinations, of convenient alliances and accidental events, of endless litigation and pleas for patronage.”Ackroyd doesn’t limit his narrative to the unruly shenanigans of the kings and their nobles. He also describes the fabric and tenor of the lives of the commoners when it came to birth, work, play, food, education, health care, and death, at times humorous in fact or in retrospect, e.g. …“Apprentices … had a reputation for being unruly and even violent; one of their favorite games, when they found themselves in a group, was known as ‘breaking doors with our heads.’”“The key to the (village) church door was prized as a sovereign remedy against mad dogs, and the ringing of church bells exorcised demons riding in thunder and lightning.”“… the most common vegetables were scorned except by the poor who considered them to be a kind of free food… It is possible, therefore, that the diet of the poor was healthier than that of the rich.”About a work of breathtaking scope and resulting from what must have been extensive research, only two minor faults come immediately to mind. The Welsh castle of Conwy is misspelled multiple times as “Conway”. As I can’t imagine Ackroyd getting that wrong in real life, it was perhaps caused by an editor’s software spell checker. The book also needs to be updated to current knowledge, as evidenced by the author’s assertion:“… the bones of Richard III (were) scattered. He is the only English king, after the time of the Normans, who has never been placed within a royal tomb.”Oh, my. The bones of Richard III were NOT scattered. Indeed, they were discovered under a parking lot in Leicester in 2012, a year after FOUNDATION was first published. After authentication, the skeleton was interred in a royal tomb in Leicester Cathedral.I’ve personally visited the island of Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland) perhaps a dozen times. I’ve zig-zagged across it by car from east to west and north to south. England is a green and beautiful land comprising as completely harmonious a populated landscape as you’ll find anywhere on Earth. I have affection for the place more than any other I’ve experienced in my lifetime, including my present residence in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. FOUNDATION reminds me why I love it so.

⭐Much of the book is biographies of various kings. The author gives a reason for this – written records of what life was for the average person in these time periods are hard to come by – but I would have liked to hear more about what was going on in the rest of the country while kings waged wars on battlefields. He does occasionally devote short chapters to details of life outside of the kings’ households but I would have appreciated more. I walked away not feeling like I had a good grasp of the totality of English history, just the personalities and failures of some of its kings.I agree with reviewers who said a little prior knowledge of English geography and history is helpful. The author wrote this book for a UK audience he expected to have some familiarity with the places, people, and groups he mentions.

⭐I wish I were eloquent enough to adequately praise this book, but I’m not so I’ll have to stumble through its attributes in my own prosaic way.First off, the beginning of the book bogged down a bit for me, as it went far back into the Stone Age. It was interesting, but that period of history is not wholly in my realm of interest, as so much of that history is speculation as there were no written records of any kind. Once I got through that and began reading about the earliest “recorded” history of England, I was hooked.What I most enjoyed about this book was the reading style. It was not academically-slanted, but it truly seemed to be aimed at the general populace. I remember so many college history classes in which battles were laboriously described. The worst ones were the battles that went on for weeks, as then we’d have to read of how each army was lined up, where their flanks were arranged, who rode in first, where the first man fell, day after day, etc. That stuff is not what intrigues me. I prefer reading about the life of the people… not the battles of its armies. Ackroyd had a lot of battles to cover, as any history of a nation is really built upon battles and land seizures and cessions, but Ackroyd mercifully handled them in a nutshell…. sort of like “9,000 men met 6,000 men… they came, they saw, they conquered.” Or, they lost. So, we knew who the major players were in these confrontations, and where they took place, but we were spared the minutia of every detail.As Ackroyd progresses through the centuries, he not only adequately describes each new monarch and his court, but he also brings in collateral English history. For example, he talked about drastic climate changes as they occurred in the first 5 centuries BC and also during the 11th and 12th centuries AD and how these changes affected not only the economy of England, but it’s people as well, and how times of exceptionally poor harvests raised the body count and ushered in epidemic diseases and crime rates.Reading this book has confirmed by previous opinion that the entire history of Man is simply one of seizure and abuse. Throughout all history, and quite evident between these pages, 99% of the people in this world have been considered expendable and simply a means to an end by the 1% ruling elite. Whether that ruling elite was simply an early man who gathered others about him to pillage a near-by village, kill its inhabitants and take over the land in order to increase his own holdings and stature, or the leaders of today’s nations who ignore their poor and hungry because all that matters is their self-aggrandizement and personal luxury, mankind’s entire history has been formed by one group warring against another in order to satisfy some personal lust.To summarize this book, I would say that it is an easy-to read tome, full of information not only about the kinds of England, but also about some of the daily life. What toys children had, what games men played, what foods they ate, what jokes they played on each other, and so much more. It’s not a “dry” history. But history is certainly covered! After reading it I felt that the entire system of “monarchy” in England was (and is), simply a crock. These rulers simply never cared about the welfare of anyone other than themselves. They wanted power, riches, fame. They considered the unlanded serfs and slaves so beneath their dignity as to not be worthy of a thought. These kings felt they “deserved” to rule by some incredible gift of divine right. They murdered, they connived, they deprived anyone at all of their land and welfare in order to promote their own personal sense of worth. Honestly, after finishing the book, it simply boggled my mind that the English put up with it at all, much less to the present!If you like history but don’t want an academic book that might be required reading on your way to becoming a PhD in history, then you’ll love this book. If you’ve heard of the Plague, the houses of York and Lancaster, the Hundred Years War, the War of the Roses, the Plantagenets, the Hanoverians, Angevins, Normandy, or the Tudors, then you’ll find those topics adequately covered. I am looking forward to reading the further volumes in this series!

⭐Seems to me to be a fairly unbiased history written by an author who doesn’t seem to have much of an axe to grind, which is unusual for a history book. The author seems to be secular and seems to believe more in chance than providence but that is an understandable viewpoint. It’s almost impossible to be totally unbiased but the author does a fair job of trying to be, in my opinion. He does write in such a manner where at points in his history I can really imagine being in that time and place, so it isnt exactly A “dry” history even though the emphasis is on the royal houses, who kind of bore me, but thats not his fault.

⭐Peter Ackroyd begins his 6 volume epic work on English history with this excellent book. It begins with a brief overview of Roman and Anglo-Saxon times before giving a more detailed account of the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties, which include some of the most exciting tales in English history. The English Anglo-Saxon kings arguably created the world’s first nation-state, which somehow withstood the hostility and incompetence of the foreign Norman and early Plantagenet monarchs. Ackroyd describes very well the chaos that these kings wrought, summarising drily “It might have been said at the time – the kings of England do nothing but harm” (chapter 19).It isn’t all about the kings, however. Interspersed between the chapters on the kings are shorter chapters about the everyday life of ordinary people, for those interested in social history. These chapters convey to the reader the struggle for existence of much of the masses. In spite of their kings and the harshness of daily life, ordinary English people did drive social improvement over time. The chapters on the Wars of the Roses particularly sparkle and show how the masses got on with their lives despite the chaos arising from the nobility.An excellent read for those interested in the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties.

⭐This book covers English history from the bronze age to the death of Henry VII in 1509. Ackroyd presents a good summary of this period. Although it is rather imbalanced. For example 20 pages are dedicated to each king whereas a small amount of pages is dedicated to the whole Anglo-Saxon period. If you are looking for a well written, researched and easy read about British history then this is an easy reconmendation. However if you seek a more in depth study, you’ll have to find it else where

⭐I am not a historian so can’t judge on that basis. As an interested amateur I found it both gripping and, at times, amusing. As an Ackroyd fan (both of fiction and non fiction) I was expecting a lot from this book and I wasn’t disappointed. Definitely recommended and I intend to read more (all?) of the series in time.

⭐Reading Peter Ackroyd’s english history books is one of the great pleasures of life. Wow that’s pretty amazing to have just said.He writes beautifully, he informs, educates, takes you through big and small incident with equal aplomb. He manages to give the most amazing sense of time and place, capturing people and times in history as few have ever managed before. I love history, as you might be able to tell, but I have never found anything quite like the Ackroyd books. He is simply a master story teller and a magnificent historian.I have read plenty of great history books but for me nothing quite touches the English History books by Peter Ackroyd, simpy a genius at work. Read these if you want to understand people and events that shaped and changed the world in which we live today – not just England!

⭐Volume 1 of a projected 6 volumes, so a good place to startAckroyd is always readable and cogent, if you want more depth you must look for much narrower volumes, but these are often a little on the turgid side – he reminds me a little of Bryant, but more up to dateEveryone should read this

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