'This excellent collection of addresses and articles ... is a heartfelt plea for a better appreciation of history and historians, couched in Cannadine's customarily accessible style. There are jokes and witty asides, but the underlying message is serious... This book is a tribute to the great breadth of Cannadine's interests. There are chapters on Sir Malcolm Sargent starting the flag-waving tradition of the Last Night of the Proms; the place of Britain in Canada's imperial past; the birth of the heritage 'industry'; the changing analyses of the Industrial Revolution; the career of the maverick Thirties MP Sir Josiah Wedgwood, and very much more.' -Andrew Roberts, The Daily Mail
'Cannadine is a master weaver between the thens and nows of history. These essays show he is - in the best sense - a historian at the height of his powers.' - Gordon Marsden, History Today
'These essays confound any argument that British historical writing is moribund. Cannadine is far more than a lofty surveyor of many of the debates he discusses. As one of our most productive historians, both before and during his directorship, he has been an active participant with his work on class, the invention of tradition, the aristocracy and, with 2001's Ornamentalism, a riposte to Edward Said's Orientalism. He has a sure touch in detecting a subject that casts light on contemporary issues, hopes and fears.' - A.W.Purdue, Times Higher Education
'The writing has all the clarity, and the argument all the precision, that can be expected of a foremost practitioner of the historical art.' - Leslie Mitchell, Literary Review
'What Cannadine manages so engagingly is to place the debates and controversies of the past firmly within contemporary discourse. His ambition on taking over as Director of the IHR was to marry the scholarly and the public worlds. This lucid, provocative and intriguing compendium shows he succeeded with aplomb.'
Tristram Hunt, in The British Scholar 'Book of the Month' review