*The Year 1000* is a vivid and surprising portrait of life in England a thousand years ago – no spinach, no sugar, but a world which already knew brain surgeons and property developers and even the occaisonal gossip columnist. Can you imagine the medieval equivalent of superglue and Viagra? How monks communicated when they weren’t allowed to speak? Robert Lacy and Danny Danziger’s fascinating book is packed with such unexpected details. Both an entertaining and highly informative read, *The Year 1000* brilliantly brings this distant world closer than it has ever been before. ***Thoroughly enjoyable… a superb insight into life as it was lived a thousand years ago** * – INDEPENDENT ***Fascinating… as much fun to read as it seems to have been to right** * – MIRROR ***A brilliant little book, well-written,knowledgeable, insightful, accessible, a model of how popular social history should be written** * – GLASGOW HERALD ***As stylish a popular social history as one could find** * – THE TIMES