tldr: If what you want is an introductory graduate-level survey of Anglo-Saxon archaeology and history, this is a decent, but not perfect, entry. If you are a layperson seeking an accessible introduction to the Anglo-Saxon world, this isn’t the right book for you.

This book was largely a long listing of facts about the Anglo-Saxons. Large blocks of time are given to dry details like transitions in coin production or speculation about whether a particular style of jewelry originated with the Celts or Anglo-Saxons. Comparatively little time is given to describing Anglo-Saxon society and ways of life, or to the overall story of Anglo-Saxon history. This evidence-heavy, narrative-light approach seems targeted at scholarly readers; this text reads to me like an English History 501 textbook. I was able to read it without trouble, but I had been looking for a lighter-weight introduction to the Anglo-Saxons that would do more of the synthetic work for me. This isn’t that book.

Higham & Ryan also have a tendency to minimize the individuals in English history. Great kings, as they tell it, were not great so much as the beneficiaries of great circumstances. Bad kings were really the victims of bad circumstances. Religious leaders such as Bede were really responding to inevitable social circumstances, not acting out of sincere belief. Various conquerors cannot be credited with their own success; they were simply in the right place at the right time.

Of course, this reflects the modern rejection of the so-called “great man theory” of history, and this rejection is a good thing in moderation. The near-total rejection of personal capacity and conviction represented here, however, goes farther in this direction than I find credible. The best reading of history is one which factors in BOTH broad social, economic, and political trends AND the peculiarities of certain influential actors; Higham & Ryan seem to me to be as one-sided as the older style of history which made the people all-in-all.

The narration succeeded at making the book better than it would have been if I read it hardcopy; it brought some life to a necessarily dry text.