Empires of the Normans with Dr. Levi Roach

History of the Germans from the Middle Ages to Reunification

Dirk Hoffmann-Becking

Society & Culture, Education, History

4.9 • 551 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We had the great pleasure to interview Dr. Levi Roach, Prize-winning author and Associate Professor at the University of Exeter about his new book, The Empires of the Normans..

We have encountered the Normans many times in the History of the Germans. This is the chance to get the whole story.

It is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce freebooters, of fortunes made and fortunes lost. The Normans made their influence felt across all of western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and Lisbon to the Holy Land. In Empires of the Normans we discover how they combined military might and political savvy with deeply held religious beliefs and a profound sense of their own destiny. For a century and a half, they remade Europe in their own image, and yet their heritage was quickly forgotten - until now.

'In this fascinating, panoramic account, Levi Roach brings an expert eye and page-turning energy to the telling of their extraordinary story' Helen Castor, bestselling author of She Wolves

'A fresh retelling of the story of the Normans . . . written with enthusiasm and brio' Marc Morris, bestselling author of The Anglo-Saxons

Publisher: John Murray Press

ISBN: 9781529398465

Number of pages: 320

Weight: 540 g

Dimensions: 236 x 158 x 30 mm

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to a History of the German special, talking about the Empires of the Normans with Dr. Levi Roach.
0:12.7	Dr. Levi Roach is Associate Professor at the University of Exeter. He's also the author of multiple prize-winning books,
0:19.6	the kingship and consent in Anglo-Saxon England,
0:22.6	King Ethelwet the Unready, the best named monarch in the Middle Ages, forgery and memory
0:28.4	at the end of the first millennium, a book a possessed and cherish, and he has now finished
0:34.6	his latest work, the Empires of the Normans. Levi, thank you so much for talking to us.
0:40.4	Thank you for having me on. So, the Empires of the Normans. So what can you tell us about the book? What is it about? Why did you write it? And who is it for?
0:50.1	So it's designed for a general audience, for anybody really interested in the Middle Ages,
0:56.3	the Normans, the period kind of more widely.
0:58.9	And the whole point of the book really is to put the Norman's front, right and center of development.
1:06.2	Because I think popular history goes in waves at times, that certain things go in and out of fashion.
1:10.9	And right now, you know, Vikings are very in fashion.
1:12.9	Anglo-Saxons are quite in fashion in the Anglosphere.
1:15.7	But for whatever reason, Normans really have gone out of fashion, despite them having had an
1:19.6	absolutely transformational effect on European history, but also the history of North Africa,
1:24.9	of the Mediterranean, of the Middle East.
1:27.3	So this was an opportunity to try to put them back into the picture, and particularly for an audience in the UK or the US, who might be used to think of the Normans really as kind of based in Normandian conquerors of England.
1:40.3	Yes, that's all very important, but they're also doing a lot of other really interesting and
1:45.8	important stuff in southern Italy, in Liberia, also elsewhere in the British Isles, in Wales,
1:52.5	in Scotland, over in Ireland.
1:55.4	Wow, that is impressive. So you're trying to push it on, so the next HBO series will be on the
2:00.2	Normans. Well, yes, we shall see it, if only, if only. it on, so the next HBO series will be on the Normans.
	...

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