Quote Originally Posted by O'Callaghan View Post
Haven't read either. However, Magnus Magnusson was a TV quizmaster, which wouldn't ordinarily be much of a recommendation as a historian, except that he always struck me as a very scholarly and intelligent gentleman. If nothing else, I would certainly expect a book by him to get the facts correct.
Magnusson, who was born in Iceland, was a graduate of Jesus College, Oxford, and in addition to hosting "Mastermind" for something like 25 years (he was also the Lord Rector of Edinburgh University for several years), was an immensely well respected "popular" historian who's works were meticulously well researched, and yet written with a style that made them eminently readable and thus accessible to many who would have been put off by more scholarly (one might say pretentious) works. His books on the vikings and the Icelandic sagas are to be particularly recommended, as is his history of Scotland.