The Normans in the South, 1016-1130

Book excerpt: This book is about the 'other' Norman Conquest. It is the story of Robert Guiscard, perhaps the most extraordinary European adventurer between Caesar and Napoleon. In one year, 1084, he had both the Eastern and Western Emperors retreating before him and one of the most formidable of medieval Popes in his power. It is also the story of his brother Roger, thanks to whom he conquered Sicily from the Saracens; and of Roger's descendants, notably his son Roger II, who converted his father's achievement into a cosmopolitan and cultivated kingdom whose surviving monuments still dazzle us today. The Normans in the South is the first of two volumes that recount the dazzling story of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. The second volume The Kingdom of the Sun is also being reissued in Faber Finds. 'Diligence, narrative skill, and a scholarship fired by enthusiasm' Lord Kinross, Sunday Telegraph 'I found the book very enjoyable indeed. It is beautifully written.' Nancy Mitford