History, like the present, is always changing.

Scholarship on the history of the British Isles is currently experiencing a golden age. The breakdown of modernism and the eclipse of both the Marxist tradition and the 'Whig interpretation' that sees all history as progress, combined with the trajectories of nationalism in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, have generated unprecedented intellectual activity.

Nor has the world stood still: the collapse of communism, the issue of integration into the EU, and the advance of multiculturalism have led more and more people in the English-speaking world as a whole to sense that their collective landscape now looks profoundly different from that inhabited by their ancestors even a few decades ago.

In A World By Itself, six distinguished historians offer the most definitive and compelling history of the British Isles to date. Tracing the political, religious and material cultures from the Romans to the present day, this is at once an urgent reassessment of our shared past, and an inspirational celebration of British history. It focuses on the major themes and most dramatic moments of the last two millennia: the rise and fall of empires; reformation, revolution and restoration; wars both civil and global; and the enduring question of what it means to be British.

'A thought-provoking and uncompromising book...which will surely influence the way we regard ourselves and our country in the years to come.' Sunday Herald

'A confident and fascinating history of Britain... Masterful.' Observer

'Combines a balanced new survey of the past with a rousing declaration of the historian's moral obligations... This is a very good book to have on the shelf.' Financial Times

'Impressive.' History Today