AEthelstan: The First King of England, by Sarah Foot. New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 2011. vii, 283 pp. $40.00 US (cloth). In her biography of AEthelstan (r. 924-39), Sarah Foot gives us the most extensive study of the king to date, and few could surpass her use of all available sources to create a more complete portrait of this early medieval king. AEthelstan has long been cast aside, when remembered at all, as a short-lived, but highly intelligent, ruler. Despite this lack of modern and popular support, Foot contends that AEthelstan deserves not just commemoration, but celebration. She argues that AEthelstan was the English monarch, for no ruler before him governed all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as a single realm. She contends that AEthelstan was not just the first king of the English, but also the first king of England. Writing the biography of a medieval subject is rarely easy, even with a surplus of sources. Using the barest of references, Foot brings the image of AEthelstan into sharp relief. With this text, Foot places the king squarely in the centre of English history as important traditionally as his grandfather has been in the historical canon. Where AEthelstan's grandfather and father sought to expand Wessex, AEthelstan fought to control Britain from Scotland to the English Channel. This broad goal, achieved through war and diplomacy, created a kingdom larger than either Alfred or Edward imagined. AEthelstan first took the title rex Anglorum in 924/925. Foot shows how this title differed from Alfred's: AEthelstan was not king of the Angles and Saxons--he was king of the English. Further, she argues that AEthelstan, with his victory at Brunanburh, could claim to rule not just the English, but England as well. Beginning in 927, AEthelstan's court, scribes, coins, and foreign rulers all bore witness to the quasi-imperial nature of his rule. Foot purposely does not follow a timeline of AEthelstan's deeds. Instead, she breaks his life into different spaces, areas where the king and the man performed together. Foot describes every aspect of AEthelstan's life: his family life, court and kingdom, military exploits, and death are given equal weight by the author. This organization allows her look at AEthelstan as more than simply a record of his charters and battles. It does, however, compartmentalize some features of the king's life that may have benefitted from additional connections, such as those of family and court, and court and kingdom. Despite the paucity of contemporary sources for AEthelstan, Foot provides a full and detailed account of the king's life. She relies heavily on William of Malmesbury and his Gesta regum Anglorum. William had a special interest in AEthelstan, as his abbey directly benefitted from the king's munificence; thus his is the fullest near-contemporary account of the king. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, charters, law codes, and smaller chronicles round out the majority of her sources. …