NEW READS FOR THE NEW YEAR
Anatomy of a Nation: A History of British Identity in 50 Documents by Dominic Selwood This book wasn’t at all what I expected from the sub-title ‘A History of British Identity in 50 Documents’; ever
since Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects there have been a lot of books set out in this vein, but this one is different.
Aside from the prelude, in which William the Conqueror’s diplomatic documentary sleight of hand that is the Charter to Lundenburgh is carefully explained, the documents themselves don’t feature centre-stage in each of the chronologically arranged chapters. Instead the ‘50 documents’ are often seemingly just woven in to the pages, almost as asides.
Yet it is in his detail and asides that, , Thomas Cromwell, Winston Churchill, Tony Blair etc); the pages remind us of the stories. For example, William the Conqueror’s scorched earth policy, the ‘harrying of the north’, which resulted in the death by starvation of an estimated 100,000 of his new, rebellious, subjects. Or the international consequences of the attempt on Christine Keeler’s life, and the subequent police investigation as to actually who was on her list of lovers.
