Power and Its Problems in Carolingian Europe, by Stuart Airlie
Charles West
This selection of thirteen articles, originally published between 1990 and 2007, confirms Stuart Airlie’s standing as a foremost interpreter Carolingian political culture, superb essayist too. The reader will find within its covers well-known pieces, in important general journals, together with contributions to books stocked only handful British libraries. These latter articles are by no means inferior the former, every one demonstrating mastery details ninth-century Frankish history sources. They also reveal his intimate familiarity an enormous body historiography, particular German-language work—something that is especially valuable these days worsening monolingualism, at least Britain. For all immersion historiographical traditions, approach remains distinct from scholarship Munich Vienna. partly question intellectual style. Airlie, acute subtle student texts, readily draws on insights literary cultural studies enrich work. In Airlie article, weighty distinguished German historians rub shoulders Herman Melville, Samuel Beckett bebop, used vivid analogies never purely decorative (bebop, for example, memorably describe character improvisation elites end rule Francia provoked: frenetic, rather than relaxed).
The English Historical Review