A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3000 BC-AD 1603 v. 1 Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3000 BC-AD 1603 v. 1 Book

"History clings tight but it also kicks loose. Disruption as much as persistence is its proper subject". If only it had been dispensed Simon Schama-style at school. His enthusiasm without being overbearing or overwhelming is astonishing, considering his erudition and esteem world-wide.He puts human stuffing into remote cardboard cut-out progenitors of our dynasty and destiny, realistically conveying spiritual and temporal needs and failings. Indeed, immature princes, homosexuals, royal mistresses, divorce and remarriage did not originate with the 20th century, and the quotidian norm of verbal and literal back stabbing and saving one's skin, hypocrisies of Church and State and horrible death from battle have been conspicuous from the outset. "War's plunder was the glue of loyalty binding noble warriors to the king".British history turns out to be a show of many foreign parts and Timothy West's enlightening reading irresistibly spurs involvement with Roman government, Anglo Saxon confusions, doings of French and Spanish nobility, Henry VII's manoeuvres and Elizabeth I's intrigues--specifically the latter's spider-and-fly activities with turbulent Mary Stuart.Schama says in his absorbing introduction "History should be not just instruction but a pleasure", This production fulfils that principle, and is utterly marvellous. (4 cassettes, running time 8 hours) --Lyn TookRead More

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  • Amazon

    What do you get when you combine the resources and ethos of the BBC with the literary panache of one of the world's best narrative historians? The answer is Simon Schama's History of Britain, the first volume of which accompanies the BBC television series of the same name.

    In a beautifully written and thoughtfully crafted book, studded with striking portraits, pictures and maps, Schama, the bestselling author of books on European cultural history such as The Embarrassment of Riches and Citizens, as well as 1999's Rembrandt's Eyes, has managed to be both conventional and provocative. He tells the official version of Britain's island story--from Roman Britain, through the Norman conquest, the struggles of the Henrys and Richards with their bolshie barons and cautious clerics, Edward I and the subjugation of Wales, King Death (the plague), and on to the Henrician reformation, before closing with the remarkable reign of the virgin queen, Elizabeth I.

    While sticking to a script familiar to anyone who sat up and listened in history lessons at school, Schama brings it all alive, with memorable prose--Simon de Montfort's rebel parliament is described as inaugurating the "union between patriotism and insubordination"; with Henry VIII, Schama says, "you could practically smell the testosterone". And with fine sensitivity too, particularly on the symbolism of buildings, memorials, language and ceremonies, and on the complex relations between England and her Celtic and Catholic neighbours. If history must have gloss, then let it be written and presented like this. --Miles Taylor

  • Amazon

    What makes or breaks a nation? To whom do we give our allegiance and why? And where do the boundaries of our community lie - in our hearth and home, our village or city, tribe or faith? What is Britain - one country or many? This book delivers these themes.

  • TheBookPeople

    Change - sometimes gentle and subtle, sometimes shocking and violent - is the dynamic of Simon Schama's unapologetically personal and grippingly written history of Britain, especially the changes that wash over custom and habit, transforming our loyalties. What makes or breaks a nation? To whom do we give our allegiance and why? And where do the boundaries of our community lie - in our hearth and home, our village or city, tribe or faith? What is Britain - one country or many? Has British history unfolded 'at the edge of the world' or right at the heart of it? Schama delivers these themes in a form that is at once traditional and excitingly fresh. The great and the wicked are here - Becket and Thomas Cromwell, Robert the Bruce and Anne Boleyn - but so are countless more ordinary lives: an Irish monk waiting for the plague to kill him in his cell at Kilkenny; a small boy running through the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth I. The first in a series, this volume paints a rich and vivid portrait of the life of the British people and their nation.

  • BookDepository

    A History of Britain - Volume 1 : Paperback : Vintage Publishing : 9781847920126 : : 05 Nov 2009 : Change - sometimes gentle and subtle, sometimes shocking and violent - is the dynamic of Simon Schama's unapologetically personal and grippingly written history of Britain, especially the changes that wash over custom and habit, transforming our loyalties.

  • 1847920128
  • 9781847920126
  • Simon Schama
  • 5 November 2009
  • The Bodley Head Ltd
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 352
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