Reviews of Books

The Isles


The best-selling and controversial history of the British Isles, including Ireland from the author of 'Europe: A History', emphasizing our long-standing European connections and positing a possible break-up of the UK. This is an agenda-setting work destined to become a classic.

Reviews - The Isles

The Isles. A History

Wednesday 01 March 2000 History Today, Robert Pearce

Some historians have written the history of Britain and called it English history. More often, however, we write English history and call it British, merely paying lip-service to the notion that the Scots, Welsh and Irish have important histories which we should respect. Norman Davies rightly castigates such Anglo-centrism as a veritable ‘Anglo-astigmatism’.

Was there ever an England?

Sunday 07 May 2000 The New York Times, Peter Clarke

Norman Davies succeeds in offering a different scenario from that of the English-speaking peoples. If there is a bee buzzing in his bonnet, it is certainly not a wasp.

The Isles: a history

Monday 13 November 2000 The Independent, Christopher Harvie

To that group opinion which holds the break-up of the United Kingdom to be imminent.

The art of being British

Sunday 06 November 2011 Virginia Quarterly Review, Richard Jones

These are fractious days in the United Kingdom. While the country enjoys, generally speaking, a high standard of living with London topping the European league, there are all kinds of half-submerged debates and uncertainties. The two principal subjects for unease are firstly, the future British relationship with the European Union and its currency and secondly, the relationship of the nations which make up the United Kingdom with one another; is the United Kingdom becoming a federal state?