The Shortest History of England by James Hawes

The Shortest History of England by James Hawes

England—begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, star of beloved period dramas, and home of the House of Windsor—is not quite the stalwart island fortress that many of us imagine. Riven by an ancient fault line that predates even the Romans, its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbors; and for the past millennia, it has harbored a class system like nowhere else on Earth. This bracing tour of the most powerful country in the United Kingdom reveals an England repeatedly invaded and constantly reinvented—yet always fractured by its very own Mason-Dixon Line. It carries us swiftly through centuries of conflict between Crown and Parliament (starring the Magna Carta), America’s War of Independence, the rise and fall of empire, two World Wars, and England’s break from the EU. We discover: why the American colonists of 1776 believed that they were the true Anglo-Saxons how the British Empire was undermined from within why Winston Churchill said the UK could only be saved by splitting up England itself and how populism spawned Brexit and its “new elite.” The Shortest History of England brings all this and more to prescient life—offering the most direct, compelling route to understanding the country behind today’s headlines. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.

James Hawes published six novels before turning his storytelling gifts to nonfiction. His previous two shortest histories, The Shortest History of Germany and The Shortest History of England, have sold more than half a million copies around the world. Hawes has known Ireland since the 1970s, lectured for two years at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth (where the IRA tried to recruit him), and is married to an Irishwoman.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781615198146
ISBN 10	1615198148
Title	The Shortest History of England
Author	James Hawes
Series	The Shortest History Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Experiment
Year published	2022-03-15
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.