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Six historians focus on the major themes and most dramatic moments of the last two millenia: the rise and fall of empires; reformation, revolution and restoration; wars both civil and global; and the enduring question of what it means to be British. .
Trade review
A magisterial new one-volume history of the British Isles from the Romans to the present day, by six of our most prestigious and engaging historians. Importantly, this pays real, rather than just token, attention to the histories of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, as well as England.
Book Details
Publisher:
VINTAGE
Publication Date:
03-Feb-2011
ISBN:
9780712664967
Guardian review
A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles, edited by Jonathan Clark review
the guardian Sat 05 March 2011
The British Isles have experienced extraordinary "stability and continuity", argues Clark in this massive work of scholarship, but we now live in "a time of growing insecurity". We cannot be as confident about our identity or our prosperity as our ancestors were. This lack of confidence is reflected in the book's approach, as its contributors scrupulously avoid the prejudice of certainty or any complacent belief in causation, resulting in a kind of bloodless abstraction that can be rather dull. Fortunately, Robert Skidelsky's essay on the 20th century is agreeably opinionated, warning of the rise of a "moneyed oligarchy" in politics, and arguing (less persuasively) that "Keynesianism and socialism . . . are coming back to life". Some counterfactual endpieces also liven things up a little. What if William had died at the Battle of Hastings? The English language would not have acquired more than 10,000 French words, for a start. And what if the House of Lords had rejected parliamentary reform in 1831-2? Might there have been a revolution, establishing a British republic?
