History Of Britain (vol 1) At The

Change - sometimes gentle and subtle sometimes shocking and violent - is the dynamic of Schama's unapologetically personal; grippingly written history; especially the changes that wash over custom and habit; transforming our loyalties. At the heart of his history lies a question of compelling importance for our future as well as our past: what makes or breaks a nation: to whom we give our allegiance and why ? And where do the boundaries of our community lie - in our hearth and home; our village oor city; tribe or faith ? What is Britain; one country or many; one culture or several ? has British history unfolded at the edge of the world or right at the heart of it ? All these themes are delivered to the reader in the stories which Schama loves to tell; and in a form that is at once traditional and excitingly fresh. The great and wicked are all here - Becket and Thomas Cromwell; Robert the Bruce and Ann Boleyn; but so are countless more ordinary lives - an Irish monk waiting for the plague to kill him in his cell at Kilkenny; a small boy running throgh the streets of Londonn to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth I. They are all caught on the rich and teeming canvas onwhich Schama paints his brilliant portrait of the life of our people for in the end; history; especially British history with its sucession of thrilling illuminations; should be ; as all her most accomplished narrators have promised; not just instruction but pleasure