In Search of England: Journeys into the English Past Book

From the popular television historian who has previously gone in search of the Trojan War and in the footsteps of Alexander, comes a new study of a pressing question, now that "Britain" seems to be an increasingly meaningless concept: What does it mean to English? Wood traces an answer through many of the most cherished national myths, like Robin Hood, King Arthur, Alfred the Great and the mysteries of Glastonbury. As you would expect from Wood, he ranges about over the whole of England, rather than sticking to the obvious places. He visits Tinsley Wood near Sheffield, claimed as the site of Athelstan's great victory over the Celts in 937 AD. He finds a farmhouse in Devon that has been continuously occupied for a thousand years and a village in Leicestershire where the local peasantry confronted the King's soldiers in 1265 to tell them that they were violating the rights of "the common people of England." The book also boasts a wonderful, judicious collection of reproductions of old posters and paintings showing how our forefathers, particularly the Victorians, imaginatively recreated England's past in their own image. Timely, readable and fascinating stuff, this is popular history at its very best. --Christopher HartRead More