Timelines provide helpful chronological reference and are a handy addition to this informative text. Conveniently arranged in eight sections, each dealing with a major historical period, chapters include: Prehistoric Britain; Roman Britain; Invaders and Settlers; Medieval Britain; Early Britain; Georgian Britain; Victorian Britain and The Twentieth Century. The book covers the key historical events and adds vignettes of lesser-known but interesting details like the uprisings in Dark Age Wales and the birth of tabloid newspapers in Victorian Britain.
One of the worst history books i have ever read. This book is very poorly written. The author has missed many important facts out of this book on the history of Britain. It reads like it has been written by a child who is just starting to develop writing skills, it is that bad!
I am not going to go into great details about why it is so bad because i don't feel like wasting any more of my time on it. I will state though that the books keeps jumping from one century to the next and back again. I could not keep up with this approach to writing history.
There is absolutely no fluidity to this book what-so-ever, so all i can do is to say that if you love your history and like well written books that flow and also contain all the proper facts, then stay away from this awful account of British history.
P.s I am now reading Europe : a history by Norman Davies, and after only 6 pages i can tell this is going to be a proper account of history by a proper historian.
I know i don't write many reviews (something i would like to change) but, when i read a book as bad as this, then i like to inform the Goodreads community about it. I just hope this review helps a little.
Perfunctory. A history of Britain that mentions Aneurin Bevan more than it mentions William Shakespeare has got some issues to deal with. But there are some satisfactory chronological connections made here. The early history is, of course, much better than the later material.
Highly informative description of past and present Britain; requires extra efforts from reader to get started, however consistently illuminates hidden connections of UK with different nations.
This is an excellent whistle-stop tour of British history. I use it most often as a first port of call for placing the books I am reading into context.