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This volume is a little different than most Osprey Campaign books, because it’s really about more than one campaign. In some senses it’s even about more than one war.

But only in fairly limited senses. Mostly, this is about one phase in a larger conflict (“war”), and because of this there’s two distinct battles that get major coverage. The introductory section moves from vague origins of the Franks and Saxons (and notes their main groupings into East- and Westphalians, Angrians, and Nodalbians) to the fact that Charles Martel fought the Saxons something like ten times, and then goes on to his son Charlemagne’s early campaigns against them.

We start with a good map of various campaigns against the Saxons from 772 to 781. While up to the usual Osprey standards, it is relatively confusing because they’re packing a lot of motion into one display. There’s good captioning to help sort it out, but it also serves to show just how much effort was being expended for a fairly constrained area. The effective overall war starts in 772 with Charlemagne invading and destroying the Irminsal, some form of sacred tree that was important to Saxon paganism. It was probably meant to show Christian superiority and symbolically take the Saxons into the Frankish orbit, but of course it also caused resentment. There are two Saxon attacks after that, and Charlemagne imposes peace again. At this point, Widukind emerges as the main leader of Saxon resistance. The main qualification for this is being able to slip out the back door, and just not get forced into much by the Franks. Certainly, he is first noted as not being present at an assembly in 777 called by Charlemagne, and is instead visiting the ruler of the Danes.

The main section of the book opens with Charlemagne holding another assembly in southern Saxony in 782, largely to organize administration in the region, but also to recruit men for a campaign against the Avars. Part of this gets redirected against the Sorbs, but the three senior Frankish leaders find a Saxon rebellion has started behind them, and joined by a fourth commander, they get drawn into fighting in the Süntel hills. This is a disaster, with two of the top commanders, and a number of other important men being killed. There’s another good map showing the area and movements towards battle, and then three isometric maps showing the course of the main battle.

That’s the end of the initial campaign.

There’s another regular map showing movements over the next year, as Charlemagne puts together a new army and looks to put down the rebellion. He defeats them at Detwold, retreats from a confrontation at Osning (Teutoberger Wald; yes that one), and fortified Paderborn. There’s a another battle, which is said to last three days, but Nicolle opines was probably two days of getting Charlemagne’s force over a river (I think that’s sensible interpretation). The Saxons are crushed, and the rebellion is over.

But, Widukind slips out again, and gets more allies. This time the Frisians and Eastphalians rebel, and Charlemagne gets to do it all over again. Progress is blocked by flooded rivers, but little else, and during 785 hostages are exchanged, and Widukind goes to see Charlemagne in Attigny, and converts to Christianity. All of this gets another good overview map.

The ending section goes into the aftermath of Widukind’s incorporation into the Frankish Kingdom, giving a very brief summary of further small rebellions that last until AD 804. At this distance it is hard to point to a lot of concrete results, but the sources make it plain that the fighting had been particularly savage and damaging to the entire region. After this, Saxon resistance was nearly crushed, and most Saxon social and governmental institutions were done away with.

This isn’t the best of the Campaign series by any means, but it is still well put together and informative. The maps, as always are a big help, and both the Irminsal and Widukind feature in modern (French) memory of Charlemagne, so a book focusing on this part of his reign makes a lot of sense. There’s the usual useful color and B/W photography of various artifacts, and some of the landscape (not enough to really help me), and a good set of colored archaeological diagrams of a few Saxon forts of the period.

Ada Palmer’s title doesn’t cover everything that’s in this book. In fact, what the book covers is probably too large for any one title, and it is to her credit that it isn’t too large for any one book.

First note: this book is written in a very atypical tone. Instead of just laying things out, describing events, sources, relationships, with a third-person voice that minimizes the author, Palmer takes a very personal, first person voice here. This annoyed me at first, but does allow some very useful bits. Notably, she talks about the work of history, and how theories are established and rejected over time. You know, just like in ‘hard’ science. Also, she talks about her own experiences in academia; a notable early bit is about going to a symposium and noting the different populations in different panels. This also leads into a discussion of how the questions we start with determine a lot of the research and writing done, and how gender segregated various parts have been (though it is getting better).

She also leverages the first person to make all sorts of current “meme” comparisons, which may end up “dating” this book well before its time. But, she also works in an apt comparisons, like the boardgame Siena which she rates as the best Renaissance-themed game she knows of for its depiction of Fourteenth Century social climbing. I’m afraid I’ve not played it, but I know I’ve heard the name before, and it sounds like the goals are properly aligned with the history it wants to show.

This is after some early admonitions to not trust the author, at least not too much. Palmer is very up front about the fact that there will be other books on the same shelf as hers that have different conclusions, and the bulk of them will be just as valid as hers. This was a nice early bit of expectation management, and does get a lot of follow up, for the first half of the book at least, about the different answers that can be found on a number of subjects or people.

This flows back into the talk of theories, namely, “just what is the Renaissance?” There’s some time spent with various definitions in the middle and just how they aren’t satisfying for various reasons. However, there’s the seed of an answer all along: the Renaissance was a self-conscious attempt to create a golden age. A lot of our current thoughts actually go back good advertising that started at that time. And the eventual definitions late in the book do relate to that bit of propaganda and its goals.

The longest part of the book is a series of fifteen mini-biographies (some famous, some quite obscure) that all intersect and deal with Florence. The latter is almost an odd choice, as she’s already shown that the association of the Renaissance with Florence is more self-fulfilling prophecy than actuality; but there’s a reason why it happened in the first place. But the real point is to move back and forth over a few decades, coming at some of the same events from different angles. I don’t think this works out as well as hoped, and it is decidedly the densest part of the book.

It’s not bad, mind you, just not as good as the rest.

Then we get into some of the current (or close to) historical thought on the Renaissance, and current definitions. This leads us back to exclusions, and figuring it out by what did it turn into and how. Eleventh Century philosopher Peter Abelard shows up early, and then becomes a recurrent figure here; so much so that his presence is verbed for the last parts of the book. Not only was the Renaissance a self-proclaimed effort to create a golden age, but the major (intellectual) project was to find forgotten and mistranslated wisdom from prior ages and integrate it all into one syncretic world view that would naturally solve the world’s ills. What could go wrong?

Well, it didn’t work, for one. The advice the umanisti gave didn’t help, the better known the ancient writers became, the more evident their contradictions became, and the more obvious their lacks in the face of all the new things coming from across the Atlantic became. From there we get a whirlwind tour of philosophical thought that could become a new Connections miniseries.

The book largely ends with a discussion her own classroom exercise dealing with the crisis year (in Italy) of 1492. It’s the type of thing that more classes really should have, as a practical demonstration that, among other things, people haven’t changed that much. The various members of the class all have roles of people around the papal election that year, and it’s aftermath, the First Italian War. There’s plenty of room for things to be different, but the pressures are such that someone invades Italy in the aftermath. Further philosophical discussion brings all of this to a relation with current events.

It’s an amazingly wide-ranging book. Just looking at the table of contents (“19. Rome: The Eternal Problem City”) will give you some idea of the ride you’re in for. And it leverages being unusual to very good effect.