"In the Land of Giants: A Journey Through the Dark Ages" by Max Adams (published 2016)
"In the Land of Giants: A Journey Through the Dark Ages" by Max Adams (2016) is exemplar of how I wish history would always be written. Adams, an archaeologist, writer, and traveller has a profound understanding of Great Britain's history, and uses its architecture, landscapes, metalwork, books, and other geological sites to explain and theoretically dissect the events of its past in order to understand the present historical - and moreover - social - conjuncture. In this book, Adams unpacks one of the most ambiguous times in Great Britain's long history, what is known as the Dark Ages, using artifacts, pathways, and geological markers that still, unbeknownst to the majority, stand (either above or underground) to this day. Furthermore, to make his work all the more visceral, Adams avoids traveling by anything other than his own two feet, and in doing so falls into the landscape and its horizons as his predecessors would have. Though there have been recent e...