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Charlemagne (Vintage)
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780307274809
ISBN: 0307274802
Label: Doubleday
Manufacturer: Doubleday
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: December 22, 2006
Publisher: Doubleday
Release Date: June 12, 2007
Studio: Doubleday
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Editorial Review:
An absorbing biography of the great leader who was the bridge between ancient and modern Europe — the first major study in more than twenty-five years.Charlemagne was an extraordinary figure: an ingenious military strategist, a wise but ruthless leader, a cunning politician, and a devout believer who ensured the survival of Christianity in the West. He also believed himself above the rules of the church, siring bastards across Europe, and coldly ordering the execution of 4,500 prisoners. Derek Wilson shows how this complicated, fascinating man married the military might of his army to the spiritual force of the Church in Rome, thereby forging Western Christendom. This is a remarkable portrait of Charlemagne and of the intricate political, religious, and cultural world he dominated.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Derek Wilson: Heretofore Writer of High Regard; Here and Now, Promising Pamphleteer
I feel an obligation to make as much a clamour over the books I treasure, as over those I treasure trashing; and to that end, Derek Wilson will now take it on the chin from one who wholly regrets the purchase of his most recent mess and work of propaganda, so-named "Charlemagne."
Wilson's biography of Charlemagne is short in length - no surprise there - but, too, it is short in temperament. Behind Wilson's self-loving prose is a wit born of clenched teeth and furrowed brows. If ... Read More
Rating:  - The Question of Europe
Charlemagne was not only a king of one of the various "barbarian" groups that arose after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, but something that exists very rarely in human history. He was a warrior, a devout believer in faith, a politician, and an intellectual who ruled not only a mere kingdom but a dozen separate and squabbling regions and peoples who at time were only united in their differences. However, it was Charlemagne who united most of Western Europe into not only a single political force ... Read More
Rating:  - Brilliantly written !
This is an excellent, in-depth biography of Charlemagne. The last few chapters of the book go beyond the life of the emperor and analyse the effect he had on European society in the Middle Ages and afterwards.
Rating: - Is he French,is he German,is he Greek,is he Roman?
there are excellent and well placed maps that show the extent of Charlemagne's "empire".How much actual control he had over these territories could be debated. Charlemagne, from my read of the book, seems like the greatest inheritor of the religion, culture, and laws of the Chritianized version of the vanished western Roman Empire.Before him there seemed to be smaller pockets of Goths,Franks,etc.all of whom claimed to be the legitimate inheritors of western Rome.Charlemagne,from my read however,"stole the ... Read More
Rating: - Efficient biography and exploration of the origins of the concept of Europe
I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. The idea that Charlemagne was responsible for the creation of a concept of a unified Europe that is embodied in today's EU is not original, as is witnessed by the book "Charlemagne: Father of a Continent" by Alessandro Barbero and Allan Cameron, released in 2004. (Full disclosure: I have not read Barbero and Cameron's book.) However, Barbero and Cameron take more than 400 pages, where Wilson takes just over 200.
Charlemagne was lucky in that his brother, ... Read More
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