David Bates took his PhD at the University of Exeter, and over a professional career of more than forty years, he has held posts in the Universities of Cardiff, Glasgow, London (where he was Director of the Institute of Historical Research from 2003 to 2008), East Anglia, and Caen Basse-Normandie. He has worked extensively in the archives and libraries of Normandy and northern France and has always sought to emphasise the European dimension to the history of the Normans. He currently holds a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship to enable him to complete a new biography of William the Conqueror in the Yale University Press English Monarchs series.

• Preface ; Abbreviations ; 1. The Normans and Empire ; 2. The Experience of Empire ; 3. William the Conqueror as Maker of Empire ; 4. Hegemony ; 5. Core, Periphery, and Networks ; 6. Empire: From Beginning to End ; Bibliography

David Bates took his PhD at the University of Exeter, and over a professional career of more than forty years, he has held posts in the Universities of Cardiff, Glasgow, London (where he was Director of the Institute of Historical Research from 2003 to 2008), East Anglia, and Caen Basse-Normandie. He has worked extensively in the archives and libraries of Normandy and northern France and has always sought to emphasise the European dimension to the history of the Normans. He currently holds a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship to enable him to complete a new biography of William the Conqueror in the Yale University Press English Monarchs series.

• Preface ; Abbreviations ; 1. The Normans and Empire ; 2. The Experience of Empire ; 3. William the Conqueror as Maker of Empire ; 4. Hegemony ; 5. Core, Periphery, and Networks ; 6. Empire: From Beginning to End ; Bibliography