The Unexpected King

George V (Penguin Monarchs)

The acclaimed Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers - now in paperback 
 
For a man with such conventional tastes and views, George V had a revolutionary impact. Almost despite himself he marked a decisive break with his flamboyant predecessor Edward VII, inventing the modern monarchy, with its emphasis on frequent public appearances, family values and duty. George V was an effective war-leader and inventor of 'the House of Windsor'. In an era of ever greater media coverage - frequently filmed and initiating the British Empire Christmas broadcast - George became for 25 years a universally recognised figure. He was also the only British monarch to take his role as Emperor of India seriously. While his great rivals (Tsar Nicolas and Kaiser Wilhelm) ended their reigns in catastrophe, he plodded on. 
 
David Cannadine's sparkling account of his reign could not be more enjoyable, a masterclass in how to write about Monarchy, that central - if peculiar - pillar of British life.

Sir David Cannadine is Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, Visiting Professor at Oxford University and the editor of the National Dictionary of Biography. His major works include The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, Ornamentalism, Class in Britain and Mellon: An American Life. He is the general editor of two major series: The Penguin History of Britain and The Penguin History of Europe. At the Summit of the World? is his volume in the former series.

For a man with such conventional tastes and views, George V had a revolutionary impact. Almost despite himself he marked a decisive break with his flamboyant predecessor Edward VII, inventing the modern monarchy, with its emphasis on frequent public appearances, family values and duty. George V was an effective war-leader and inventor of 'the House of Windsor'. In an era of ever greater media coverage - frequently filmed and initiating the British Empire Christmas broadcast - George became for 25 years a universally recognised figure. He was also the only British monarch to take his role as Emperor of India seriously. While his great rivals (Tsar Nicolas and Kaiser Wilhelm) ended their reigns in catastrophe, he plodded on. 
 
David Cannadine's sparkling account of his reign could not be more enjoyable, a masterclass in how to write about Monarchy, that central - if peculiar - pillar of British life.

History Beyond Our Differences

The Undivided Past

David Cannadine's impassioned, controversial plea for us to recognise the importance of both equality and history 
 
Great works of history have so often had at their heart a wish to sift people in ways that have been profoundly damaging and provided intellectual justification for terrible political decisions. Again and again, categories have been found--religion, nation, class, gender, race, 'civilization'--that have sought to explain world events by fabricating some malevolent or helpless 'other'. 
 
The Undivided Past is an agonised attempt to understand how so much of the writing of history has been driven by a fatal desire to dramatize differences - to create an 'us versus them'. Is is above all an appeal to common humanity.

[Cannadine's] great strength is his lucid and crushing treatment of false prophets ... his case is urgent, as the news demonstrates every day ... Cannadine is frank in acknowledging that his is not the last word ... but he has uttered the first word and deserves exhaustive discussion. His plea is of enormous value. It should be heard in every think tank, madrassa, history workshop and sixth form and should guide the utterances of statesmen

Cannadine marshals modern scholarship, a sure historical sweep, and a confident polemic ... Quite rightly, Cannadine denounces the collective, warring identities conjured up by [neoconservative scholars] and again highlights a broader history of cultural exchange ... this collection winningly combines history, politics, and contemporary culture in a refreshingly optimistic manner

An ambitious and wide-ranging exploration of the notion of human solidarity. It explores the concept by seeking to analyse what divides us, neatly sidestepping the need to list what we have in common ... an interesting and informative read

[An] impassioned plea ... The Undivided Past should earn applause ... The next time some tub-thumping loudmouth proclaims the timeless truth of a binary divide - between, say, 'Britain' and 'Europe' - throw this book at them

Highly intelligent, stimulating, occasionally provocative and enormous fun to read ... The Undivided Past is a cry for tolerance ... It is a noble message and one that historians would do well to heed

Elegantly written and stimulating ... [Cannadine] goes much further than most academic historians in challenging the centrality of tensions based on nation, class, ethnicity and gender

Cannadine urges us to see through [prejudices] and past them, to get away from the old chestnuts of class, race, gender and the rest, and to concentrate on exploring what brings us together

Each chapter of Cannadine's book ... displays the incisive and original argument for which he is renowned ... Cannadine is surely right to insist on a recovery of the unchronicled swathes of human history dominated by cooperation and peace, rather than wars of race, religion or nationalism ... [The Undivided Past displays] his characteristic style and ingenuity

Cannadine has produced a set of lively and informative essays that are leavened ... by a dry wit

Sir David Cannadine is Chair of the National Portrait Gallery, Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University and General Editor of the Penguin History of Europe and Penguin History of Britain. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Chair of the Blue Plaques Committee. His major books include The Rise and Fall of the British Aristocracy, Ornamentalism and Mellon: A Life. He has previously taught at Cambridge, Columbia and London universities.

A Celebration of 400 Years of Bonfire Night

Gunpowder Plots

Professor Pauline Croft and Professor Justin Champion are leading writers and researchers on late Tudor and early Stuart Britain; Antonia Fraser is the author of the definitive The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605; Professor David Cressy's most recent book is Agnes Bowker's Cat; Mike Jay is the author of The Unfortunate Colonel Despard; and Brenda Buchanan is an expert on the history of gunpowder and explosives

400 years ago this November the most ambitious and extraordinary plot ever conceived in this country came close to success: the attempt by Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators to destroy in a single, annihilating blast the entire British ruling class and royal family. 
 
This book draws on the expertise of different writers to bring to life the immense implications of the Plot and the strange way they have echoed down to us over four centuries in what remains the quintessential English festival. Pauline Croft writes about the amazing plot itself and the anxious, unstable world of Jacobean Britain, Antonia Fraser imagines a world in which the plot had succeeded, Justin Champion dramatizes the national emergency that followed the plot's discovery and its savage anti-Catholicism, David Cressy traces how Bonfire Night has been celebrated since its inception as a holiday, Mike Jay focuses on the most famous and enduring rituals held each year at Lewes and Brenda Buchanan offers a wonderful history of fireworks in Britain.

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David Cannadine

A book such as this is a work of heroic summary.

Magnificent... a thumping great book, and it is probably destined to become a classic. Cannadine succeeds triumphantly.

The United Kingdom, 1800–1906

To live in Victorian Britain was to experience an astonishing series of changes, of a kind for which there was simply no precedent in the human experience. There were revolutions in transport, communication, work; cities grew vast; scientific ideas made the intellectual landscape unrecognizable. This was an exhilarating time, but also a horrifying one. 
 
David Cannadine has created a bold, fascinating new interpretation of Victorian Britain. This was a country which saw itself at the summit of the world. And yet it was a society also convulsed by doubt, fear and introspection. Repeatedly, politicians and writers felt themselves to be staring into the abyss and what is seen as an era of irritating self-belief was in practice obsessed by a sense of its own fragility, whether as a great power or as a moral force. Victorious Century catches the relish and humour of the age, but also the dilemmas of a kind with which we remain familiar today.

David Cannadine

Praise for Victorious Century

A book such as this is a work of heroic summary.

Magnificent... a thumping great book, and it is probably destined to become a classic. Cannadine succeeds triumphantly.

A sparkling history, immensely readable

A book such as this is a work of heroic summary.

Magnificent... a thumping great book, and it is probably destined to become a classic. Cannadine succeeds triumphantly.

A sparkling history, immensely readable

A book such as this is a work of heroic summary.

Magnificent... a thumping great book, and it is probably destined to become a classic. Cannadine succeeds triumphantly.

A sparkling history, immensely readable

Books by David Cannadine

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