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A History Of Britain

A History Of Britain

Volume 2 - The British Wars 1603-1776

Summary

Timothy West reads the second volume of Simon Schama’s compelling chronicle of the British Isles. The British wars began on the morning of 23 July 1637, heralding two hundred years of battles waged within and away from our isles. Most would be driven by religious or political conviction, as Republicans and Royalists, Catholics and Protestants, Tories and Whigs, and colonialists and natives vied for supremacy. Of those battles not fought on home territory, a great number took place across Europe, America, India and also at sea. Schama’s examination of this turbulent period reveals how the British people eventually united in imperial enterprise, forming what he calls ‘Britannia Incorporated’. The story of that change evokes the memory of such enduringly influential people as Oliver Cromwell, as well as lesser known but equally extraordinary individuals. A story of revolution and reaction, progress and catastrophe, this is a vivid account of two centuries which changed Britain.

About the author

Simon Schama

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. His award-winning books, translated into fifteen languages, include Citizens, Landscape and Memory, Rembrandt's Eyes, A History of Britain, The Power of Art, Rough Crossings, The American Future, The Face of Britain and The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words (1000 BCE - 1492).

His art columns for the New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for criticism and his journalism has appeared regularly in the Guardian and the Financial Times where he is Contributing Editor. He has written and presented more than fifty films for the BBC on subjects as diverse as Tolstoy, American politics, and The Story of the Jews and is co-presenter of a new landmark series on the history of world art, Civilisations.
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