The Shortest History of England

As he journeys from Caesar to Brexit via Conquest, Empire and World War, Hawes 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.