I bought this book when I was abroad over the summer because I like medieval history and I did not know much about Charlemagne. I started reading it now because this week in my Medieval European History class we are learning about the Carolinians. Luckily, I had taken this book to uni with me so I have been able to supplement what I have been learning in class with this book. I also wanted to read the Legends of Charlemagne as collected by Thomas Bullfinch. I needed a basis of factual understanding of who Charlemagne was before reading the Legends.

I though this book was a good comprehensive history of the Emperor. I covered just about everything that could be covered. I did not read ever chapter of this book, but enough to get a good understanding of Charlemagne's life. I do not need to know details about the economy and about all the wars that were fought. From the sections I did read I feel like I have better understanding of this history. However, the authors small anecdotes about specific 20th century events seemed a little out of place when talking about the 8th and 9th century.