The English and their History

'Masterful, an enormously readable narrative of the English people from the Anglo-Saxons to the present' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times, Books of the Year

In The English and their History, the first full-length account to appear in one volume for many decades, Robert Tombs gives us the history of the English people, and of how the stories they have told about themselves have shaped them, from the prehistoric 'dreamtime' through to the present day.

'As ambitious as it is successful . . . Packed with telling detail and told with gentle, sardonic wit, a vast and delightful book' Ben MacIntyre, The Times, Books of the Year

'A stupendous achievement ... a story of a people we can't fail to recognize: stoical, brave, drunken, bloody-minded, violent, undeferential, yet paradoxically law-abiding ... I found myself gripped' Daniel Hannan, Spectator

'Original and enormously readable, this brilliant, hugely engaging work has a sly wit and insouciance that are of themselves rather English' Sinclair MacKay, Daily Telegraph