Jeremy Black has written a vigorous and fascinating narrative of a group of rather desolate offshore islands and their remarkable impact on the rest of the world. From the earliest pre-history to the present day, this stirring account describes the astonishingly varied stages through which the British Isles have passed to achieve their present identity. Just as the islands have populated and ruled so much of the rest of the world, so they have been settled themselves by many invaders, all of whom have left their mark - ...
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Jeremy Black has written a vigorous and fascinating narrative of a group of rather desolate offshore islands and their remarkable impact on the rest of the world. From the earliest pre-history to the present day, this stirring account describes the astonishingly varied stages through which the British Isles have passed to achieve their present identity. Just as the islands have populated and ruled so much of the rest of the world, so they have been settled themselves by many invaders, all of whom have left their mark - from Romans to Saxons, from Vikings to Normans - creating an immensely rich historical inheritance. Perhaps most dynamic of all has always been the relationship between the four principal peoples of the islands: Scots, Irish, English and Welsh. A History of the British Isles is not (unlike most other accounts) really just a history of England. Proper weight is given to all four, often fractious, components of the British Isles, providing the reader with an admirably balanced and absorbing account - political, social, economic and cultural - of an extraordinary shared history. In this second edition the study is brought up to date and each chapter has been thoroughly revised in the light of recent scholarship across the whole range of British history.
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