A History of Britain : At the Edge of the World, 3500 B.C.-1603 A.D |
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A History of Britain : At the Edge of the World, 3500 B.C.-1603 A.D
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by Simon Schama
Sales Rank: 56715
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$10.00
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 416 pages
Published by: MiramaxEdition: 1st Edition October 25, 2000
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0786866756
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0786866755
Book Dimensions:
10.3 x 7.8 x 1.5 inches
Weighs: 3 pounds
Product Review
What do you get when you combine the resources and ethos of the BBC with the literary panache of one of the world's best narrative historians? The answer is Simon Schama's A History of Britain, the first volume of which accompanies the BBC-History Channel series of the same name. In a gorgeously written and thoughtfully crafted book, studded with striking portraits, pictures, and maps, Schama, the bestselling author of books on European cultural history such as The Embarrassment of Riches and Citizens, as well as 1999's Rembrandt's Eyes, has managed to be both conventional and provocative.
He tells the official version of Britain's island story--from Roman Britain, through the Norman conquest, the struggles of the Henrys and Richards with their barons and clerics, Edward I and the subjugation of Wales, King Death (the plague), and on to the Henrician reformation, before closing with the remarkable reign of the virgin queen, Elizabeth I. But, while sticking to a script familiar to anyone who sat up and listened in history lessons at school, Schama brings it all alive, with memorable prose--Simon de Montfort's rebel parliament is described as inaugurating the "union between patriotism and insubordination"; with Henry VIII, Schama says, "you could practically smell the testosterone." And with fine sensitivity, too, particularly on the symbolism of buildings, memorials, language, and ceremonies, and on the complex relations between England and her Celtic and Catholic neighbors. If history must have gloss, then let it be written and presented like this. --Miles Taylor, Amazon.co.uk
From Publishers Weekly
One suspects that Schama harbors a secret desire to be the ageless Bede, whom he describes as a "consummate English story-teller, an artful retailer of wonders, a writer of brilliantly imaginative prose." In earlier works on the French Revolution (Citizens) and the golden age of Holland (The Embarrassment of Riches), he perfected his balance: market appeal is never sacrificed to condescension. This new volume is a model of literate elegance, enlivened by good humor and bursts of pugilistic directness: "The Faerie had warts all right," he writes of Elizabeth I. His task is not easy: British national identity is no longer axiomatic. Schama steers away from a Churchillian litany of patriotic glories, and from the revisionist pieties of the Left. In practice, this means, that unlike Landscape and Memory and Dead Certainties, this is not a work of great conceptual boldness. Its strengths lie rather in the detail. From his opening chapter, in which a prehistoric Orkney community is described as a "seaside village," Schama is ever alert to the unexpected. We learn that Hadrian's wall, far from being an impregnable fence, was designed to control the flow of men and goods; that Saint Patrick was not Irish (he was "a Romano-British aristocrat" by birth); and that the Battle of Hastings, at six hours, was one of the longest of battles in medieval history. His book has all the hallmarks that he admires in Bede, his medieval forebear: vigor of language, the capacity to evoke and clear-eyed common sense. (Oct.) market.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Reader Reviews
The overlap between excellent scholarship and exceptional readability in today's history writing is exceedingly slim. Schama's History of Britain is as good an example as the market holds today. While it obviously doesn't treat the subject area in the same depth as his his texts on Dutch and French subjects or on Art history, the area covered here is immense. From my standpoint, Prof. Schama performs a herculean task simply to distill the material into such a usable and enjoyable work. I am quite hard pressed to think of a another such work of excellent writing on a large subject area other than Shelby Foote's Civil War volumes, which seem somewhat comparable in every positive respect. Additionally, one can open A History of Britain and read with enjoyment at almost any point and for any period of time. The characterization of key players matches that of the best novels and Schama's writing compares favorably to a somewhat similar work, Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples. I recommend disregarding the less favorable reviews following as unfair in perspective. The combination of a powerful scholar of Simon Schama's caliber with such graceful writing is almost unheard of and the alternative of tedious fact recitation is no choice at all. This is a book to purchase twice, once for yourself and again as a gift for a good friend.
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A History of Britain : At the Edge of the World, 3500 B.C.-1603 A.D
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Price: $10.00
Updated on 6-21-2008.
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