Print Price: $46.50

Format:
Paperback
688 pp.
268 black and white halftones and 25 colour plates, 189 mm x 246 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199544752

Publication date:
April 2009

Imprint: OUP UK

The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain

New Edition

Edited by Kenneth O. Morgan

This beautifully illustrated volume tells the story of Britain and its people over two thousand years, from the coming of the Roman legions to the present day. Encompassing political, social, economic, and cultural developments throughout the British Isles, the dramatic narrative is taken up in turn by ten leading historians who offer the fruits of the best modern scholarship to the general reader in an authoritative form, illuminating their text with carefully chosen pictures and maps.

A vivid, sometimes surprising picture emerges of a continuous turmoil of change in every period, and the wider social context of political and economic tension is made clear. But consensus, no less than conflict, is a part of the story: in focusing on elements of continuity down the centuries, the authors bring out that special awareness of identity which has been such a distinctive feature of British society. By relating both these factors in the British experience, and by exploring the many ways in which Britain has shaped and been shaped by contact with Europe and the wider world, this landmark work brings the reader face to face with the past, and the foundations of modern British society.

The new edition, the first for almost twenty years, brings the story into the twenty-first century, covering the changes to British society and culture during the Blair years and the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

Readership : All those interested in the history of Britain and the British Isles, from Roman times to the 21st century

Reviews

• Review from previous edition: "belongs in every school satchel, on every student's desk, in every library's catalogue... on everyone's coffee table... wherever readers have a real curiosity to discover, in words and pictures, the current stage of historical inquiry in the field of British history"
  
  --Peter Clarke, History Today
• "Here is a book to intrigue the mind and gladden the eye"
  
  --Max Beloff, Art International
• "A lively and stimulating overview by a selection of our best historians, scholarly but very readable"
  
  --John Kenyon, Observer
• "All ten authors... embody the very qualities Kenneth Morgan hopes his quite exceptional history will instil in its readers: clarity, subtlety, enthusiasm and even affection"
  
  --TES
• "An essential part of the high culture of our times, something which every educated person will be expected to have read"
  
  --Vernon Bogdanor, Encounter
• "For those who want a one-volume history of Britain this is ideal and with the superb illustrations a bargain"
  
  --Glasgow Herald