Any recommendations on books about the history of Britain during the 1

[Guy Berger]

I've been going through the Penguin History of Britain series (currently on the volume covering 1066-1300) but unfortunately the volumes covering 1715-1900 have not been published yet and I would be interested in an alternative. I'd like something that combines both political/military and social/economic history, preferably not political-agenda driven.

[mjazzg]

I've been going through the Penguin History of Britain series (currently on the volume covering 1066-1300) but unfortunately the volumes covering 1715-1900 have not been published yet and I would be interested in an alternative. I'd like something that combines both political/military and social/economic history, preferably not political-agenda driven.

My immediate thought was Eric Hobsbawn's series - Age of Revolution; Age of Capital; Age of Empire but then I saw your request for no political agenda (how possible is this, I wonder, either overt or otherwise, for any historian to achieve?) and Hobsbawn is a reknowned Marxist thinker so maybe not. Great read though, maybe a bit too European and not GB focussed enough .

Hobsbawn was a Jazz critic with an intriguingly chosen pseudonym. see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm#Works

So I'll defer to other board members both who have a professional interest in history (Robin Hood's neighbour?) and those that don't to come up with some better suggestions

[Ted O'Reilly]

You might be interested in Winston Churchill's "A History Of The English Speaking Peoples". Interesting, if a little spotty. One reviewer called it something like 'a history of the things that interest Churchill...'

[A Lark Ascending]

You might be interested in Winston Churchill's "A History Of The English Speaking Peoples". Interesting, if a little spotty. One reviewer called it something like 'a history of the things that interest Churchill...'

And more than a little old. Very much a 'Whig' interpretation of British history - how it all took place to create the wonderful Brito-centric world we lived in! I have the serialisation done in a UK magazine series in the late-60s. Tells a great tale but open to all sorts of interpretative challenges.

Can't really help on 1750-1900. I did all my reading there in the late-70s and imagine most of what was written then has been superseded (in terms of overviews rather than in-depth studies).

I can strongly recommend Dominic Sandbrook's series on post 1956. Three so far with a fourth due on the Thatcher years. Mixes political, economic and social history with a strong narrative drive (something that has returned to history writing after being unfashionable at the time I was studying).

I no longer read the in-depth studious things - they are essentially for study. But I think there has been some fabulous 'popular' history written over the last couple of decades - books that distil the academic stuff and present it in a form that is accessible to a general audience without patronising us.

Edited February 9, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

The 'History of Britain' series by Simon Schama is probably a good place to start - in 3 volumes. A bit of a personal slant at times but it is well written and covers a lot of turf.

Peter Ackroyd has just started a series too - his first volume covering prehistory to the Medieval period came out quite recently and has been well received.

Also for the Dominic Sandbrook 50s/60s/70s series. Looking forward to his next one.

[danasgoodstuff]

^ Davies, Norman (1999). The Isles: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. xxii. "Many years later, having written Europe: a history, I was invited to give a lecture at University College, Dublin. After the presentation, someone in the audience asked about my current project. I started to reply that I was thinking of writing a history of 'the British—'. I then realized that in Dublin, of all places, one cannot talk fairly of 'the British Isles'. The Isles ceased to be British precisely fifty years ago when the Republic of Ireland left the Commonwealth, though few people in the British residue have yet cared to notice. Various clumsy alternatives were discussed, such as 'the British and Irish Isles', 'Europe's Offshore Islands', and the 'Anglo-Celtic Archipelago'. In the end, it was decided that the only decent name for the forthcoming book was 'A History of These Islands'. And such was one of several working titles until, after much trial and error, I eventually arrived at The Isles: A History."

I liked this, complete with much discussion of historiography and changing historical perspectives, not everyones' cup of tea I suspect...