OPL - 2 copies - Dec. 2015 - 2 copies StatsCan library
Dec.2015 Abebooks $33-new,

Anyone looking for the cutting edge of historical understanding of northern Britain from the earliest times to the Viking Age should look no further.

- close scrutiny of sources written by neighbouring peoples... This is surely one of the most ground-breaking books on Scottish history of recent times.

- The field of 'Pictish studies' has advanced in Scotland in recent years. The author has been at the forefront of some of these developments

A very important contribution ....... cutting edge of historical understanding of northern Britain from the earliest times to the Viking Age should look no further.

- examines the transformation of Iron Age northern Britain into a land of Christian kingdoms, long before 'Scotland' came into existence. Perched at the edge of the western Roman Empire, northern Britain was affected by the experience, and became swept up in the great tide of processes which gave rise to the early medieval West. Like other places, the country experienced social and ethnic metamorphoses, Christianisation, and colonization by dislocated outsiders, but northern Britain also has its own unique story to tell in the first eight centuries AD.

This book is the first detailed political history to treat these centuries as a single period, with due regard for Scotland's position in the bigger story of late Antique transition. From Caledonia to Pictland charts the complex and shadowy processes which saw the familiar Picts, Northumbrians, North Britons and Gaels of early Scottish history become established in the country.

It is a story that has become much revised through changing trends in scholarly approaches to the challenging evidence, and that transformation too is explained for the benefit of students and general readers.

Key Features: *The only detailed political history to treat the first eight centuries AD as a single period of Scottish history. *Redresses the imbalance created by an existing literature dominated by archaeologists ...... provides a narrative history of the period. *Bridges a traditional disciplinary divide between the Roman and early medieval periods. *Locates this phase of Scotland's history within a European context, emphasising what is unique and what is not.

- found it quite difficult to follow the various familial trees as generations passed by in a flash and new kinglists emerged. Still, Fraser came through with a decent chapter near the end in discussing the warrior society and the requirements for ordinary folk to follow a leader into battle.

- terrific scene setter that establishes some of the peoples around at the time of the Romans and populating the northern reaches of the British isles prior to the arrival of the Vikings.