The Shortest History of England

By James Hawes

READ IN A DAY. REMEMBER FOR A LIFETIME.
In his bestselling, internationally-acclaimed The Shortest History of Germany, James Hawes told the story of a nation in 240 invigorating pages, tracing the roots of today's challenges back to the first encounters with Rome. In The Shortest History of England, he takes the same approach to his homeland. As he journeys from Caesar to Brexit via Conquest, Empire and World War, he discovers an England very different to the standard vision. Our stable island fortress, stubbornly independent, the begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, is riven by an ancient fault-line that predates even the Romans; its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbours, whether we like it or not; and -- for the past 1,000 years -- it has harboured a class system like nowhere else on Earth. There has never been a better time to understand why England is the way it is -- and there is no better guide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Old Street Publishing
• Release date: Nov 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781910400708

James Hawes

James Hawes is the author of the internationally acclaimed Shortest History of Germany. He has published a biography of Kafka (‘absolutely brilliant and utterly infuriating’ –The Guardian) and Englanders & Huns, the real story of the fatal Anglo-German antagonism (‘full of enlightening surprises’ –The Times).

Reviews for The Shortest History of England

[datrappert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A work of this length leaves a lot out, but as a high-level chronology of England from pre-Roman times to Brexit it is impressive and highly readable. If you buy the author's focus on the island's millennia long divide between North and South, the narrative is quite convincing.

[Rosemary Harvey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very brief history. Devotes a lot of space to the 'north-south' divide.
The book sags when it gets to the 20th century, by spending too little time on the history and far too much time on sordid electoral politics. Disappointing.