Some of them are there right from the beginning, others don't come along until Roman or Anglo-Saxon or Norman times. It does so by focusing on several families and their ups and downs over the centuries. Sarum tells the entire, and I mean entire (up to the point it was written, circa 1985) history of England via the cathedral city of Salisbury, once known as Sarum, which sits at the confluence of five rivers and has been a population center for thousands of years, as evidenced by the fact that Stonehenge sits on the edge of Salisbury Plain. I cannot vouch for its historicity (it was written in the 80s, and I think there has been a little bit more archeological evidence uncovered about Stonehenge now, plus I never trust any history written about the pre-Roman Celts because the fact is, we don't know shit about them), but Rutherfurd at least does a credible job of convincing me he did the research. I think the obvious comparisons are probably Ken Follett, James Michener, Philippa Gregory, and Morgan Llewellyn, except that to be honest, I've only read Llewellyn. Really, whatever we think we know is probably bullshit.
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