The English and Their History by Robert Tombs

The English and Their History by Robert Tombs

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.

Robert Tombs is a notable specialist of Anglo-French relations and a professor of history at the University of Cambridge. That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present, which he coauthored with his wife, Isabelle Tombs, is the first comprehensive study of the French-British relationship over the last three centuries.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781101873366
ISBN 10	1101873361
Title	The English and Their History
Author	Robert Tombs
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2016-11-29
Number of pages	1040
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.