The Oxford History of Britain

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 800 pages
• Published by: Oxford University Press, USA
• Edition: Revised Edition July 28, 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 019280135X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0192801357
• Book Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.7 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

Product Review

"The standard one-volume history of Britain."--Sunday Times


Product Description
With over a half-million copies already sold, The Oxford History of Britain is considered the classic single-volume history of the British Isles. Covering two thousand years of British history, the book tells the story of Britain and her peoples from the coming of the Roman legions to the present day. Here ten distinguished contributors including Peter Salway, John Blair, John S. Morrill, and Paul Langford, offer essays on everything from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Stuarts to the Liberal Age and the twentieth century, producing a volume that is all-embracing in scope and scholarship.
Edited by the distinguished historian Kenneth O. Morgan, this acclaimed history has been updated for this revised edition, and now includes a new chapter that features a chronology, genealogies of royal lines, and coverage of prime ministers.
From the general reader to the serious history buff, anyone interested in any aspect of British history can satisfy their curiosity with this fact-filled volume.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Oxford History of Britain (Paperback) This is a good book for a reader who is little like me. I have no training in British history and little in Western. I read quite a bit of history and don't mind a challenging work, though, which lets me get through most histories without too much frustration. This book often lacked the context with which self-teaching historians can teach themselves, even with frequent map- and index-checking. The chapters of this book are all written by different authors, each one clearly an expert on the subject of his individual chapter. The authors do not agree on their audience. For instance, Gillingham's chapter on the early middle ages was clearly written, had several maps and followed a timeline before ending with a thematic look at the economy and political structure of the period. The very next chapter, Griffiths' chapter on the late middle ages, skips around by dozens of years within a single paragraph, mentions towns in France without maps and assumes foreknowledge of the battles of the Hundred Year war. Unfortunately, this book contains more chapters like the latter than the former. I suspect that a European or an American with a basic familiarity of British history would find this a very useful intermediate level book with which to learn or re-discover an overview of Britain. The handiness of one volume written by many experts providing an overview of such a long history is what is right with this book. To those with some background in the subject, this book will be extremely convenient and useful. For someone without European geographic knowledge or a recognition of the figures in British history, even a patient and attentive reading will lead to frustrating hunts for the background of many important figures mentioned once within the narrative and to pointless searches through inadequate maps.