Britannia: 100 Documents that Shaped a Nation

by Graham Stewart

Graham Stewart traces 2,000 years of an island's story—from Roman province to 21st century European nation-state—through 100 historic documents

From the eighth-century Lindisfarne Gospels to the great testament of Norman bureaucracy, the Domesday Book, and from the designs for the Union Jack in 1606 to Neville Chamberlain's 1938 Munich agreement with Hitler, the documents selected embrace a wide range of national endeavors: politics and religion, warfare and diplomacy, economics and the law, science and invention, literature and journalism, as well as sport and popular music. The first edition of the Times rubs shoulders with the rules of the newly formed Marylebone Cricket Club; the designs for Stephenson's Rocket with the Catholic Emancipation Act; Lord Kitchener's iconic World War I recruitment poster with Clause Four of the Labor Party's constitution; and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album cover with Britain's accession treaty to the European Economic Community. These are documents that not only defined their own eras, but which continue to resonate today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, Language

448 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2010

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good History in 100 Objects uses each object to highlight an aspect of history, a not so good one uses history to throw a spotlight on an object. In a bad book you don’t even remember what the object was. This is a bad book. The documents are irrelevant half the time. The reason I’ve given it three stars is it is a reasonable basic history of Britain in 100, slightly random chunks.

[Abhyuday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool book the Beowulf entry was a very fun read and the document list with tl;drs and time periods
(btw if you want to borrow it's for some reason only available at tampines library)

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only brief discussion of each document, understandably, but interesting to see what the author deemed worthy of inclusion. Documents you would expect are covered, such as the Magna Carta and I was delighted to see the Married Women's Property Act of 1882. I met a few surprises, such as Charles Booth's Poverty Map of London, which analysed the extent and nature of poverty and is well worth further investigation! I was surprised to see the Rules of the Association of Football (1863). Yes, the English are barking, it's official. I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601) and debating whether its creation might not provide an alternative end date for the Middle Ages, marking as it does a new departure in how society thinks about itself (as opposed to using the reasonable parameters of the Battle of Hastings 1066 to Henry VIII's split from Rome and the Enclosures that followed his split from Rome in 1531.)

The dearth of surviving information from the Dark Ages (as in nothing known rather than nasty, brutish and quite long) was evoked very clearly and included the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which I am reading currently!) half of which lies firmly in the Middle Ages - so clearly the author was scratching a bit!

And there is more! While checking my dates re the Enclosures I discovered that Thomas Cromwell - the Arch Villain (taking that to mean, presumably, chief villain as opposed to the villain who was smirking archly over knowing more than the other fellow - though on reflection it could be either!) had, in 1536, attempted to pass through Parliament a scheme aimed at widespread relief of the poor - but it was thrown out because he wanted to fund it by inventing income tax. He made up for it, though, by removing the right of Sanctuary in 1540!

Well, I could obviously whiffle on for hours here - finis!

[Chris Steeden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graham Stewart attempts to 'tell the history of Britain through its seminal documents'. In this case 100 of them.

This really is a great book (4.5 stars) and very well researched and presented. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot. You get 3 or 4 pages for each document. There are some plates and also extracts from the documents. It ranges from the 1st Century AD up to 2005. I tried to read a document-a-day whilst on my lunch break. There is some history around each document such as why the document came about, what is in the document and how things progressed (or not) from then.

[Penny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll be honest, if you want to start researching a basic context in which some of these documents were created, then this book is ok. There could have been more images as the authour seems to relie on the reader having already seen the documents that he is writing about. Which unless you have unlimited access to the stores of the British library, it is not likly that you know what he is talking about. Not great, but a good effort

[Alwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting facsimiles of the documents, or at the least, transcriptions. instead just a bunch of commentary; and not particularly insightful commentary at that.

[Vasuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent perspective on what pen, parchment and quill can accomplish. A must read for the history nut in your family.

[Alex Marriott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brisk and easy inspiration into further reading on a wide range of British history.