When did British history begin, and where will it all end? These controversial issues are tackled head-on in Norman Davies' polemical and persuasive survey of the four countries that in modern times have become known as the British Isles. Covering 10 millennia in just over a thousand pages, from "Cheddar Man" to New Labour, Davies shows how relatively recent was the formation of the English state--no earlier than Tudor times--and shows too how a sense of Britishness only emerged with the coming of empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. A historian of Poland and the author of an acclaimed history of Europe, Davies is especially sensitive to the complex mixing and merging of tribes and races, languages and traditions, conquerors and colonised which has gone on throughout British history and which in many ways makes "our island story" much more like that of the rest of Europe than we usually think. Many myths of the English are dispelled in this book and many historians are taken to task for their blinkered Anglo-centrism. But the book ends on an upbeat note, with Davies welcoming Britain's return to the heart of Europe at the dawn of the new millennium. --Miles Taylor

2007-12-09 Critically well received but a disappointment

Given the reviews of this book on Amazon and elsewhere I expected something special but was hugely disappointed. The book is impeneterable and does not live up to its billing. Take the first chapter. The author refuses to refer to Scotland, England etc. but uses his own names for the various regions "The Misty Country", "The Cliff Country" etc. However worthy his motives, this leaves the reader having to constantly flick back and forth between the text and the appendix in order to follow what is being said. I suspect that most readers (at least of popular history books) are interested in the history of the place not an academic exercise in reconstructing how we think about our history. In fairness to the author, I got as far as page 600 before stalling a couple of years ago and this review is based primarily on the earlier chapters after I decided to give it a second chance. It may be somewhat out of date but for pure pleasure, can you do any better than Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples?