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Title: The Enlgish (read Anglo-Saxon) Imagination
Review: Peter Ackroyd is never at a loss for words and he uses a great many of them to trace the origins and progression of the English imagination from its very early Anglo-Saxon beginnings until the twentienth century in his new massive tome, Albion. Along the way, he covers music, art, religion, philosophy, history, and biography, as well as, of course, literature, and merges them together in quite insightful ways. The book is strongest in the early Anglo-Saxon and medieval sections that set up the author's thesis and it can grow a tad bit repetitious in theme in the later chapters as he pounds home his ideas. Overall though, the reader should be fascinated by the vast number of examples from primary (and some interesting secondary) sources that pepper the book. The author's knowledge is vast and his selection of sources is unimpeccable. A frequently interesting read.
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