Charlemagne

[Professor Barbero] ... has a lightness of touch indispensable in approaching a subject which has constipated generations of continental scholars. He is particularly good in following through the repercussions of war down the social scale to the peasants who made up at least 90 per cent of the population. . . . Barbero is also a historical novelist, and knows how to hold the attention with arresting details. - The Spectator