Churchill’s tour de force of early English history is remarkable. I find the account of the Viking onslaught on the monasteries challenging. Were these monasteries being judged or was this just the natural result of sin in the world?
Philosophically, even ethically, what impacted me the most throughout his work was the ill-rewarded efforts to those that tried to show mercy. Mercy was rewarded with vengeance and, in almost every case, the safest thing to do was to annihilate the opposition. Whether or not this is morally defensible is another issue.
