'Masterful, an enormously readable narrative of the English people from the Anglo-Saxons to the present' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times, Books of the Year In T

The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a rec

THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Geography comes before history. Islands cannot have the same history as continental plains. The United Kingdom is a European

Comprehensive and balanced, this classic exploration of the history of the English language combines internal linguistic history and external cultural history--