Exeter historian scoops book of the year award

The historian beat over 60 entrants to win the Longman/History Today book of the year prize for his biography of Æthelred, a much-maligned medieval English king who spent much of his reign fighting off Viking invaders.

Dr Roach, an expert in later Anglo-Saxon England, said he was “honoured” but also surprised to win the book award.

“I firmly believe that scholarship should not only be intellectually stimulating, but accessible to a wider audience. I am therefore deeply honoured to have been awarded the Longman-History Today prize,” he said. “Having spent the better part of five years working on a king famed for his ill-preparedness, it was only appropriate that the award should come as something of a surprise. Suffice to say, it was all the more welcome for this!”

The academic who studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and held a research fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge, before taking up a lectureship in Exeter in 2012, plans to spend part of his £2,000 prize on researching his next book on Viking attacks on Europe.

The coveted History Today prize is awarded for an author’s first or second book about history which displays “innovative research and interpretation in its field.” 

Head of history, Professor Richard Toye, said: “It is a brilliant and well-deserved success.”