The Isles
Written by Norman Davies
Narrated by Andrew Sachs
4/5
()
About this audiobook
'If ever a history book were a tract for the times, it is The Isles: A History ... a masterwork..' Roy Porter, The Times
'Davies is among the few living professional historians who write English with vitality, sparkle, economy and humour. The pages fly by, not only because the pace is well judged but also because the surprises keep coming.' Felipe Fernàndez-Armesto, Sunday Times
'A book which really will change the way we think about our past … marvellously rich and stimulating' Noel Malcolm, Evening Standard
'A historiographical milestone.' Niall Ferguson, Sunday Times
'The full shocking force of this book can only be appreciated by reading it.' Andrew Marr, Observer
Norman Davies
Norman Davies FBA, FRHistS is a British-Polish historian noted for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He is widely regarded as one of the preeminent historians of Central and Eastern European history. He is the UNESCO Professor at the Jagiellonian University, Professor Emeritus at the University College London, a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and an Honorary Fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford.
More audiobooks from Norman Davies
Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trail of Hope: The Anders Army, An Odyssey Across Three Continents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Europe: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Isles
Related audiobooks
Farewell the Trumpets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5English History: A Concise Overview of the History of England from Start to End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of Wales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Island Race Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Habsburg Empire: A New History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waning of the Middle Ages Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell's Protectorate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heaven's Command Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hundred Years War: A People's History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pax Britannica Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emperor: A New Life of Charles V Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire: A History of 1111 Years and One Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Monarchy: From the Middle Ages to Modernity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Middle Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Normans: From Raiders to Kings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxon World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crown and Country: A History of England through the Monarchy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poland: The First Thousand Years Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
European History For You
Our Hideous Progeny: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The War on the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Iron, Fire and Ice: The Real History that Inspired Game of Thrones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Teutonic Knights: A Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghost Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Templars: The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler's Bunker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of American Cemeteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Napoleon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Royal Witches: Witchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Isles
124 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book was a strange read in 2020.Davies spends a fair amount of time lambasting other historians in the book, which both makes you wonder if it could have been about a third shorter, but also why he's right and they're all wrong - although I do have a lot of sympathy for many of his arguments.He does give a lot of fascinating insights into a huge number of generally under-represented areas, at least in my relatively narrow sight and that's laudable but he also goes digging into some areas where a much more superficial survey would have sufficed and it's hard to know why he's dug so deep - it's almost like he's just found something interesting and gone for it, so maybe some judicial editing wouldn't have gone amiss.The weird bit is reading his views on modern Europe and our place in it immediately after we've left the EU, all very strange no matter your views on the matter.Anyway, a book worth reading, but you might find you can skip the odd bit or two.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bloody bloody, that.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Superlative doorstopper of a history of the British Isles & Ireland with a focus on the difference between English history & the history of The Isles.Read Samoa Oct 2003
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I got this book cheaply (10 US dollars at a Half Price bookstore-list price was 19.99 pounds which is about 30 US dollars) without any idea of how good it was. I had no significant knowledge of the history of Britian or the Isles but hoped to learn. As I have read this book I have learned a significant amount but unfortunately for me this is a history book to "correct" what one has wrongly already learned-ie that which I had not learned. I am sure I missed a lot of what he was saying. So it is not a particularly good introduction to the topic if you have a week "history of britian" background such as I.
It was however very engaging and entertaining and had to be as long as it is. As a survey for that long it certainly leaves out a lot. It bills itself as a survey of the Isles, but it certainly seemed Ireland, the Welsh and Scotland could have been covered more. This is a secular history but religion is important and covered to some degree but I would have been interested in more about William Wilberforce and the abolition movement as well as Methodism and its roots.
Recommend-for those with a background of history of England/Great Britain or who want a broad overview. One point he nicely makes is that historians have become so focused and have such narrow fields of study that no one can look at a broad picture. It is important to study the trees in the forest, but it is important to study the forest as well.
While this book can be read in sections of time, the sections overlap and tie into each other.
Not recommended for a quick read or the faint of heart. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A couple of years ago I read The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes’ brilliant account of Australia’s history as a British penal colony. After moving to Britain this year I became well aware that my own knowledge of British history is pretty hazy – it was only last year that I found out the British actually once executed their king and had a republic for twenty years. I’d heard of Oliver Cromwell and the “Commonwealth” and the “Restoration” and the English Civil War, but didn’t really know what those words entailed – I had no idea of the fascinating story of the king’s overthrow, and his nephew’s straight-from-a-fantasy-novel flight to safety in France. This happens to all of us, of course; we’re vaguely aware of thousands of concepts and phrases from history, society, science and the arts without really knowing the details.So I wanted a British history book which pretty much tells the story of the nation from beginning to end – obviously a more daunting task than an Australian history book – and also, ideally, one which was well-regarded, entertainingly written and which didn’t make apologies for the horrors of the past. (More on that later.) There are plenty of gargantuan works out there, but I ended up going with Norman Davies’ single-issue The Isles: A History, which covers pretty much everything from prehistoric times to New Labour. Compared to the classic Oxford multi-volume saga, this is a “short” book, although it’s still a 1000-page brick that I’ve been reading on and off since August.The Isles was specifically written by Davies to tackle what he saw as a confused approach to British history, to wit, the confusion between what’s English and what’s British, and the overlap between them. The title itself is derived from the least contentious terminology for the British Isles and throughout the book Davies makes a point of referring to each island and nation as it was called by its inhabitants – not the Anglicised version that came thereafter.Another aspect of English history I was foggy on until recently was the Normans. I knew the word derived from Normandy in France, and that in the Middle Ages England had fought a series of protracted wars in France, but I assumed it was a case of England invading and claiming Normandy. It was quite the opposite: the Normans were French, and for a good three centuries after the Norman invasion, England’s king and nobles and knights all spoke French. (And even a thousand years later, those descended from the Normans are more likely to be well-off than those who aren’t.) Davies refers to William the Conqueror as “Guillaime,” as his people would have.The second reason Davies wrote The Isles was to challenge the politicised view of British history taught in schools for much of the 20th century, a mindset Michael Gove attempted to return to in the 21st – a nationalistic perception which attempts to shore up the idea that there was always something fundamentally British uniting the peoples of the Isles. Davies regularly reminds the reader that the nation-state is mostly a modern invention, and that in feudal times people were far more likely to consider themselves as “belonging” to their local baron or to the pope than they were to the king of England. He acknowledges the British Empire as the product of unrestrained capitalism and exploitation, although – like many British scholars – still seems to consider it a “gentler” empire, as though just because Britain wasn’t as brutal as King Leopold in the Congo, or just because it left India with a pretty good railway system, all the crimes and horrors of the Empire can be summarily dismissed.The Isles: A History is doubtless an important book and a critical addition to a historical canon which generally elevates the English to the most important strata while marginalising the Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Celts, Picts, Norseman and thousand other peoples who contributed to the long story of these islands. But for obvious reasons it wasn’t the best book for me to read. It’s a book which challenges historical assumptions amongst the British, or those well-versed in British history. For those people I can certainly recommend it. Outsiders like myself would be better off beginning elsewhere. You need to have your prejudices built before they can be challenged.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Norman Davies takes us on an exhaustive tour of the English Isles (primarily the one us Yanks call "England") in an attempt to answer a few questions: What is England? What is Brittain? What is the United Kingdom?Davies begins with Cheddar Man and works his way right up to Margaret Thatcher. This history is laid out in chronolgical order, rather than grouping material by subject. I like this approach, as this allows the history to read like a story. That's what is really is anyway, right?Davies brings a great sense of humor to what threatens to be a dry subject. At the end of each landmark era, Davies answers this three basic questions, as pertains to that point in time. As this history moves toward the present, the focus becomes more sharp, and Davies addresses this in his forward. Unfortunatley, I found the detail to be a bit much, and I gave up before the end of the 18th century, with quite a bit of book to go. Still, the first 1000 or so pages are well worth the effort.This brings us to the final point. I began by calling this history "exhaustive." I do not think that was an exageration. This is simply an enourmous book, and will take quite a lot of time to read and digest.In the end, I enjoyed Davies style enough to pick up "Europe," an equally monstrous popular history of even larger scope. I would strongly recommend this book for anglophiles, or to anyone with a passion for history, and a curiosity about the history of one of the world's great old nations. Fans of U.S. History ought to give this one a look as well. Remember, our founding fathers considered themselves Englishmen, first and formost.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The earlier part of the book emphasizes the confusing and misunderstood nature of the identity of the Isles. Is it the British Isles, Britain, England, the United Kingdom? Davies shows where and when each term arises and how they should be used without anachronism. He focuses on the European dimension of the British monarchy, providing a necessary corrective to the Anglocentric histories of the classroom. However, the book is seriously marred by a large number of factual errors and poor editorial choices. How can a serious history of these islands be written without any reference to the General Strike of 1926 or any serious discussion of the origins of the First World War? What does it say about an author's priorities when there is nothing about appeasement in the 1930s, yet the lyrics of a song by Elton John are reprinted at length? The last section, supposedly dealing with the history of the entire 20th century, looks hurriedly written, in need of thorough fact-checking, and immersed in the priorities of the late 1990s. It already looks dated - reading it feels like flicking through the opinion pages of an old newspaper. A very disappointing book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Narrator does a great job with the material, but, overall, I felt it was rather dry; seemed as though the first 30% of the book - prehistory to Normans - would never end! Rather than a conventional "history" of the British Isles, the events highlighted are those with an impact upon the relationship of England to the other three parts of (the current) United Kingdom.