Drawing upon vast amounts of fresh research, David Carpenter’s remarkable new book brings to life medieval Britain in the tumultuous period between the Norman conquest of England and the English conquest of Wales under Edward I. This epoch saw a profound reshaping of Britain, as Norman and Anglo-Saxon peoples were molded together into a new identity, and the development of a powerful parliamentary tax-based state enabled England to dominate the rest of Britain at the end of the thirteenth century. Yet as Carpenter’s wide-ranging narrative makes clear, during this time England was also linked in an entirely new way to continental Europe, leaving plenty of space for the ambitions of Britain’s other rulers, namely the princes of Wales and the king of Scots, to emerge.