Anyone interested in Ancient and Medieval History?

Mee! 

I've always loved history, especially British history like medieval and Roman times. I own a lot of books on both! One of my favourites r.e. medieval times is Year 1000 by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger - link below - it's a really great book giving a month by month description of the average person in mediaeval Briton in the year 1000. Fascinating book to read, highly recommend!

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55139.The_Year_1000

Other interesting books I own and would recommend are The Inheritance of Rome, Framing the middle ages, and Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham. All three are amazing. 

I read that years ago when it first came out.

I'm not a huge fan of Bernard Cornwell and Arthurian stuff is always tricky to deal with as is the coming of Christianity and any conflict with the various Pagan cults. There's very little real evidence of exactly how Christ was worshipped in the early days, we actually have more evidence from after the fall of Rome than before.

Conn Igulden wrote a fictionalised biography of the Anglo-Saxon Saint Dunstan which is interesting.

I also love Jack Hight's Saladin trilogy, telling the second and third crusades from Saladin's point of view.

Alison Weir, wrote a wonderful biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, this is a real non fiction history book and detail the life of an extraordinary woman

I'm not a fan of the so called enlightenment as I don't think it was very enlightened, especially if you were female, the roles of women became much more codified and during this time and led to a lot of oppression.

One really good book I read recently was How The World Made The West, by Josephine Quinn, it covers 4000 years of history.

Most of my interests are based in Britain, but do stretch out beyond it's shores. Prehistory fascinates me, all the stone circles and cursus monuments, Silbury Hill etc, what were they doing, what did they mean? I also wonder about ship building in the ancient world, I think it was much more sophisticated than we think, we know there were vast international trade networks in the prehistoric world, Cornish tin turning up in all sort of places in the eastern Med.

I didn't make it to Ephasus, it was shut, to early in the season when I went to Turkey, but I did see the Temple of Apollo at Dydim, loads of wild tortotoises there, I thought I was seeing things, they looked like walking rocks!. I loved Istanbul in the Sultanamhet, theres so much history it's boggling, Roman, rubbing up against Crusader era castles.

My degree disertation subject was on Medieval Womens Medicine, that was fascinating to research, there was a lot more of it than we're commonly led to believe and much of it was suppressed and distorted during the so called enlightenment. Fertility problems wern't just a failure in women, but in men too, female orgasm and pleasure was seen as essential to pregnancy. With a few exceptions girls didn't have sex with their husbands, even if married young, until they'd had periods for about two years as it was seen as dangerous to the health of mother and child.

I was not dictating, i just posted where i visited on Holiday.

I didn't think you were dictating, like I said earlier Ephesus was shut when I went as it was to early in the season and that I loved Istanbul when I went there.

I didn't think you were dictating, like I said earlier Ephesus was shut when I went as it was to early in the season and that I loved Istanbul when I went there.