The English and Their History
Robert Tombs
The English have come a long way from those first precarious days of invasion & conquest, with many spectacular changes of fortune. Their political, economic & cultural contacts have left traces for good and ill across the world. This book describes their history and its meanings from their beginnings in the monasteries of Northumbria & the wetlands of Wessex to the cosmopolitan energy of today’s England. Robert Tombs draws out important threads running through the story, including participatory government, language, law, religion, the land & the sea, & ever-changing relations with other peoples. Not the least of these connections are the ways the English have understood their own history, have argued about it, forgotten it & yet been shaped by it. These diverse & sometimes conflicting understandings are an inherent part of their identity.
Rather to their surprise, as ties within the United Kingdom loosen, the English are suddenly embarking on a new chapter. The English and Their History, the first single-volume work on this scale for more than half a century, & which incorporates a wealth of recent scholarship, presents a challenging modern account of this immense & continuing story, bringing out the strength & resilience of English government, the deep patterns of division & also the persistent capacity to come together in the face of danger.