The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain, 1066-1284 by David Carpenter

The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain, 1066-1284 by David Carpenter. This is a long dense but yet readable history of early medieval Britain. There is coverage of not only England but Scotland, Wales and occasionally Ireland when it interacts with the British mainland.

The book starts with thematic chapters on the economy and church. From this there is a linear narrative from the Conquest through Edward I's seizure of Wales. Concluding there are two more thematic chapters. With a work like this there's always the risk of providing too much information without enough explanations to make it accessible. Carpenter does an excellent job at the balancing act between accessibility and oversimplification. He views this era of British history to be one of the conflict between royal authority and magnates as well as the spreading of bureaucracy and legalism.

Strangely a complete section of sources is not provided. Instead there is a link to the authors University website. This seems rather strange particularly as I'm willing to bet this book will be read longer than that URL is active. There is a extensive bibliographic essay providing a discussion of both primary sources which have been published as well as important secondary works many quite recent.

Highly recommended!

Is available through Abebooks.