Alex Harvey
@alexharvv
Best-selling author | artist | archaeologist | I write about the 'Dark Ages' Views my own. Appears on BBC radio occasionally. LITTLE KINGDOMS out now:
Late Roman Spain & Its Cities (2004) by Michael Kulikowski Stupidly I actually met Michael at IMC this year and didn’t put 2 + 2 together that I was also reading his book at the same time - either way, this book is a fabulous and meticulous study of urbanism between 200 - 650 in Spain
The fab bookshop at @govanstones.bsky.social, pleased to see my book LITTLE KINGDOMS and @hornesupremacy.bsky.social’s new book TREASURES OF THE VIKINGS alongside the magisterial work of @peteralanross.bsky.social and @judithjesch.bsky.social
Bit of light reading en route to the kingdom of Strathclyde! (Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain)
Delighted to be giving a lecture at the prestigious @govanstones.bsky.social on Sunday at 4:30pm, in Govan Old Cathedral, Glasgow Just a tease as what is to come...
What's the current thinking regarding the dating of the Tabula Peutingeriana? Last thing I read about it was a theory that it was Carolingian rather than Late Antique, but I just saw its name come up in another book
Iron-Age Societies: From Tribe To State in Northern Europe, 500 BC - AD 700 (1992) by Lotte Hedeager Principally focused on Denmark, this book pairs nicely with Dagfinn Skre’s Northern Routes (2025), which focuses on Norway at the same time. Some really fascinating macro-analyses throughout. Vital.
Not every day you get a chance to return to your old stomping ground to deliver a talk to the current cohort! I was a pupil of South Axholme from 2011-2016, and now ten years older (and bearded) I get to revisit to bore the youth with tales of my career
Had a lovely walk in Malton this morning before heading over to give a careers workshop to some Year 10s
Pleased to see LITTLE KINGDOMS stocking the shelves of Kemp’s Bookshop in Malton alongside @rorynaismith.bsky.social’s OFFA
Pirates (2019, repr. 2023) by Peter Lehr Via three well-paced and informative chapters, Lehr identifies why people go pirating, what they did (from 700 - 1900), and what people do now of a similar nature This is a very useful multi-period book written by a historian with a thorough bibliography
Nice to see about LITTLE KINGDOMS on Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Kingd... 'I look forward to his next book' - more on that very soon
Iron Age Myth & Materiality: An Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000 (2011) by Lotte Hedeager I loved this, and would be interested in re-reading alongside Skre’s Northern Routes (2025) to compare his Roman to Hedeager’s Hunnic hypotheses for Scandinavia’s pre-Viking warrior cosmology
The world may be glum, but here I am in 144p resolution as asked by BBC points of view to talk about a brill Irish comedy called Funboys With my 15 seconds of fame over and done with, anything could happen now…
Delighted to be amongst a slew of brilliant authors at @govanstones.bsky.social literature festival this summer! I will be speaking about a small handful of Scotland's primordial kingdoms: Picts, Britons, Gaels, and more, on the 19th of July at 4:30pm, in the marvellous venue of Govan Old
I did the same thing this year and saw either the same two foxes or some new ones either way; happy summer solstice from the Eoferwicingas
LITTLE KINGDOMS signed and given pride of place beside @marcmorris.bsky.social in York’s magical Toppings bookshop
Finally: York St John’s very own Dr Carolyn Donohue on the city’s hidden history centred on ‘The Retreat’, and how this building is used amongst community memory-making A fitting capstone to a cracking Yorkshire conference!
Now onto Sophia Lambert’s research into the pluralised burial practices in the Bradford reform Jewish community between 1877-1935 Highlighting a wide variety of diverse funerary customs segregated on gender, age, and social class lines
Then we had Prof. Andrew Breeze’s ‘BLOODBATH AT CATTERICK’ Exuberantly presented with fantastic flair, even if we might disagree on what and where Catraeth is (And then I spoke about the wider political landscape of 5-7th c. Yorkshire)
Tales from down the drain; danger, pleasure, & pollution on Hull’s waterways by Emily Ingram MA, uncovering the plural (and often forgotten) histories amidst the era of drainage and land development across Beverley and Holderness 19-20th c.
First up; Dr Ashley Borrett on the Battle for the roads of East Yorkshire during the interwar years - how did early cars become symbols for youthful delinquency amidst an ‘epidemic of joyriders’? I always encourage specialists to attend multi-period conferences, this was great!
pointed line from mine and @history-w-hilbert.bsky.social's far-away book I wrote this bit in particular about a year ago, and am in the process of redrafting, but its still pertinent!
This was a bit of an ‘old hat’ book, but I quite value reading outdated tomes as - even when the author is way off by modern standards - you get a glimpse into a very different cultural zeitgeist that valued different artefacts, many having since left today’s consciousness David Wilson (1970)
Good spot. On the Torslunda die stamps, v similar looking, the 'horns' look like two ravens I drew it a while ago:
Fantastic conceptual diagram courtesy of David Romney Smith in his 'The Anatomy of a Raid: the character & methods of seaborne violence in the Med. at the first millennium (800-1100)' p.3 Principally focused on Saracen razzias, this is highly applicable to Early Med piracy generally (+ land raids)
Emperors & Popes, Kings & Bishops: Scandinavian history in the ‘Dark Ages’ (1994) by Gad Rausing At 33 pages, maybe this doesn’t count as a book, but it was a worthy overview of Scandinavia between 500 - 1200 CE, highlighting just how intertwined the polities have always been within Europe