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500 Battlefields That Shaped English History
'Fascinating' - The Sunday Telegraph
England has been fought over for centuries, by invaders and in civil wars. The sites of these desperate struggles are as varied as the reasons they were fought over, be they fields, towns or fortresses, by land, sea or air. These haunted acres are places of commemoration, memory and, above all, history. These are the places where history was made, and as such they form a crucial part of the historic environment.
By ‘reading’ them like any other form of historical evidence, much can be learned about the events which took place there. Through stripping away later features and land use with an eye for the ground, the battlefield historian can, with the use of contemporary accounts, archaeology and military history, reconstruct the events which have shaped the present.
In this fully updated, ground-breaking volume, covering over 500 battlefields, Michael Rayner unravels these various strands and weaves them back together to give clear, concise accounts of the battles that shaped England.
‘A painstaking survey of English battlefields ... expunges myths, illuminates facts, and puts these haunted acres into their proper context. A first-rate book.’
Richard Holmes,
‘A fascinating and, for all its factual tone, an atmospheric volume.’
The Sunday Telegraph,
‘It may come as a surprise to some just how many battles have been fought on English soil ... An authoritative work.’
BBC History magazine,
‘The most comprehensive reference book on English battlefields ever written.’
Eastern Daily Press,
