JAMES HAWES

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EXPLORE THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH ISLES THROUGH 80 EXTRAORDINARY CREATIONS, FROM BEOWULF AND THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY TO BANKSY, STORMZY, AND BEYONDA companion book to the landmark BBC series, Brilliant Isles tells the story of these islands through art, music, buildings and literature the creations of visionaries, mavericks and rule-breakers who responded to their times and shaped the future. Whether read cover-to-cover or dipped into, this is a vibrant, surprising and witty guide to a unique culture, by one of our sharpest writers'Hawes's view of English history is sharp and vivid and extremely persuasive'PHILIP PULLMAN'At last a chance to get to grips with the entire history of England, and all in a few hours!'MAIL ON SUNDAY'An engaging, informative sprint through the story of our little island'INDEPENDENT'thorough and absorbing... [Hawes] brings the story right up to date, able to step back from the current madness with admirable clarity NEW EUROPEAN'A fantastic read. I would recommend it to anyone.'PAT KENNY, Newstalk Ireland'Such a thought-provoking read...

EXPLORE THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH ISLES THROUGH 80 EXTRAORDINARY CREATIONS, FROM BEOWULF AND THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY TO BANKSY, STORMZY, AND BEYONDA companion book to the landmark BBC series, Brilliant Isles tells the story of these islands through art, music, buildings and literature the creations of visionaries, mavericks and rule-breakers who responded to their times and shaped the future. Whether read cover-to-cover or dipped into, this is a vibrant, surprising and witty guide to a unique culture, by one of our sharpest writersHawess view of English history is sharp and vivid and extremely persuasivePHILIP PULLMANAt last a chance to get to grips with the entire history of England, and all in a few hours!MAIL ON SUNDAYAn engaging, informative sprint through the story of our little islandINDEPENDENTthorough and absorbing... [Hawes] brings the story right up to date, able to step back from the current madness with admirable clarity NEW EUROPEANA fantastic read. I would recommend it to anyone.PAT KENNY, Newstalk IrelandSuch a thought-provoking read...

READ IN A DAY. REMEMBER FOR A LIFETIME. In his bestselling, internationally-acclaimed The Shortest History of Germany, James Hawes told the story of a nation in 240 invigorating pages, tracing the roots of todays challenges back to the first encounters with Rome. In The Shortest History of England, he takes the same approach to his homeland. As he journeys from Caesar to Brexit via Conquest, Empire and World War, he discovers an England very different to the standard vision. Our stable island fortress, stubbornly independent, the begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, is riven by an ancient fault-line that predates even the Romans; its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbours, whether we like it or not; and -- for the past 1,000 years -- it has harboured a class system like nowhere else on Earth. There has never been a better time to understand why England is the way it is -- and there is no better guide.

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After his masterpieces on Germany and England, James Hawes has done it again... a wonder to behold PROFESSOR CIARAN MARTIN From the Ice Age to the present, here is the real story of Ireland. In The Shortest History of Ireland, James Hawes turns his attention to Ireland, reaching beyond the cliches to tell a dramatic new story, backed up by the latest scholarship. Irish history is often seen as a mere catalogue of colonial repression. Yet Hawes shows that Ireland, its unique culture rooted in millennia of continuity, has always been able to assimilate would-be invaders. He reveals how the Irish, ever since the roaming saints and scholars of the early Middle Ages, helped shape Europe, then America. And he argues that, with its natural wealth, its extraordinary magnetism and its exiled children across the globe, the island only needs to sidestep the last, toxic wreckage of the British Empire for its turbulent past to flow into a bright future. With 100s of maps and images, this is popular history at its best -- a timeless drama of freedom and persecution, riot and revolution, empire and independence.