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The English and their history / by Robert Tombs.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2015Description: x, 1024 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781101874769 (hardback)
  • 1101874767 (hardback)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Who do we think we are? -- Prelude : The dreamtime -- The birth of a nation. This earth, this realm, c. 600-1066 ; The Conqueror's kingdom ; Five centuries after Bede -- The English unleashed. A well good land ; "The world is changed and overthrown" ; Writing the Middle Ages : Shakespeare and lesser historians -- The great divide, c. 1500-c. 1700. Reformation ; Revolution ; The civil war and "Whig history" -- Making a new world, c. 1660-c. 1815. And all was light ; A free country? ; The rise and fall of the Atlantic nation ; The first industrial nation ; Wars of dreams -- The English century. Dickensian England, c. 1815-c. 1850 ; Victorian England ; Imperial England, 1815-1918 ; Englishness in the English century -- The new dark age, 1914-1945. The war to end war ; The twenty-year truce ; The edge of the abyss, 1939-1945 ; Memory, history, and myth -- An age of decline? Postwar ; England's cultural revolutions ; Storm and stress ; Things can only get better, 1997-c. 2014 -- The English and their history.
Summary: "The English and Their History presents the momentous story of England "first as an idea, and then as a kingdom, as a country, a people and a culture." Here, in a single volume, is a fresh and comprehensive account of the English and their history. With extraordinary insight, Robert Tombs examines language, literature, law, religion, politics, and more while investigating the sources of England's collective memory and belief. The English and Their History spans 700,000 years, from the island's very first inhabitants to the present day, stopping along the way to recount the tales of conquerors, kings, and queens; a nation's myths and legends, facts and extraordinary truths. No history of England has come close to matching the scale and scope of this historical masterwork--with an eye for detail to rival his ambition, Tombs has managed to cover every significant happening and development over hundreds of thousands of years while accessibly explaining how they connect. But The English and Their History is more a work of narrative nonfiction than one of reference or record, expertly guiding the reader from footprints in the mud of early Homo sapiens through Shakespeare, Reformation, revolution, and industrialization in a narrative stretching all the way to the present"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 942 T656 In transit from Dr. James Carlson Library to Main Library since 05/04/2024 33111008350718
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A New York Times 2016 Notable Book

Robert Tombs's momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history.

The English have come a long way from those first precarious days of invasion and conquest, with many spectacular changes of fortune. Their political, economic and 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 and 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 and the sea, and 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 and yet been shaped by it. These diverse and 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, and which incorporates a wealth of recent scholarship, presents a challenging modern account of this immense and continuing story, bringing out the strength and resilience of English government, the deep patterns of division and also the persistent capacity to come together in the face of danger.

"This is a Borzoi Book."

"The English and Their History presents the momentous story of England "first as an idea, and then as a kingdom, as a country, a people and a culture." Here, in a single volume, is a fresh and comprehensive account of the English and their history. With extraordinary insight, Robert Tombs examines language, literature, law, religion, politics, and more while investigating the sources of England's collective memory and belief. The English and Their History spans 700,000 years, from the island's very first inhabitants to the present day, stopping along the way to recount the tales of conquerors, kings, and queens; a nation's myths and legends, facts and extraordinary truths. No history of England has come close to matching the scale and scope of this historical masterwork--with an eye for detail to rival his ambition, Tombs has managed to cover every significant happening and development over hundreds of thousands of years while accessibly explaining how they connect. But The English and Their History is more a work of narrative nonfiction than one of reference or record, expertly guiding the reader from footprints in the mud of early Homo sapiens through Shakespeare, Reformation, revolution, and industrialization in a narrative stretching all the way to the present"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [901]-999) and index.

Who do we think we are? -- Prelude : The dreamtime -- The birth of a nation. This earth, this realm, c. 600-1066 ; The Conqueror's kingdom ; Five centuries after Bede -- The English unleashed. A well good land ; "The world is changed and overthrown" ; Writing the Middle Ages : Shakespeare and lesser historians -- The great divide, c. 1500-c. 1700. Reformation ; Revolution ; The civil war and "Whig history" -- Making a new world, c. 1660-c. 1815. And all was light ; A free country? ; The rise and fall of the Atlantic nation ; The first industrial nation ; Wars of dreams -- The English century. Dickensian England, c. 1815-c. 1850 ; Victorian England ; Imperial England, 1815-1918 ; Englishness in the English century -- The new dark age, 1914-1945. The war to end war ; The twenty-year truce ; The edge of the abyss, 1939-1945 ; Memory, history, and myth -- An age of decline? Postwar ; England's cultural revolutions ; Storm and stress ; Things can only get better, 1997-c. 2014 -- The English and their history.

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