It’s hard to believe it’s been a year, but our newest book Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers that Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe is soon (next week!) celebrating its first birthday.

We’ve of course been so grateful for all of you who’ve read and enjoyed (or at least tolerated) the book over the last year, regardless of how you consumed it - read in hardcover, listened to the cool Wiggo voice of our narrator in the audiobook, or perused on ebook. We’ve also been overwhelmed by the audiences in the events we’ve been able to do, both when we’ve done them individually, but also as a joint appearance.

We feel the book has been a kind of slow burn. It was released not long after the American election in 2024, which seemed to just suck the air out of the room generally. But then people started to find it on their own, to maybe see lessons from early medieval Europe echo into our own time - to see what happens when rich people act with impunity, when they hoard wealth for themselves and let others suffer, when they try to overthrow governments without consequences, when men use their power and position to do horrible violence against vulnerable women.

And even if you really don’t want to think about those kind of loose parallels, we still think the book is just a good story about family, betrayals, battles that turn on dramatic moments, and empires that heave like the sea.

Indeed, we really liked this very recent meditation/ review on the book that our colleague John just posted. It starts with Oathbreakers and the Battle of Fontenoy to think about how the Carolingians AFTER Fontenoy thought about rebellious sons. Things were a bit different!

Anyway, there’s still, we think, much more to discover in the book - lessons to learn and stories to enchant - and so we hope the paperback will find its way into your homes.

Happy reading!

Unrelated (but definitely related), if you want to hear David and Matt talk more about the book, think about its pivotal moments, and the history that really stood out for us as we were writing it, head over to Matt’s podcast “American Medieval!” The Oathbreakers episode will release on Wednesday December 10 (just after the paperback!).