'Sharp and vivid and extremely persuasive'PHILIP PULLMANAs Hawes journeys from Caesar to Brexit via Conquest, Empire and War, he tells a profound new tale of England. Our island fortress is riven by an ancient fault-line that pre-dates the Romans; its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbours, whether we like it or not; and for 1,000 years it has harboured a class system like nowhere else on Earth. There has never been a better time to understand why England is the way it is - and there is no better guide.