In this much-acclaimed book, Paul Johnson looks back on two thousand years of English history and provides a radical interpretation of a remarkable people.
Provocative and incisive, Johnson applies his journalistic skills to a shrewd analysis of the evolution of the English nation, charting the growth of the small but newly independent state, enveloped in the myths of the Dark Ages, into its modern-day status as a prominent player upon the world stage.
Paul Johnson was born in 1928. He edited the New Statesman in the 1960s and has written over forty books. His Modern Times, a history of the world from the 1920s to the 1990s, has been translated into more than fifteen languages. As well as a weekly column in the Spectator, he contributes to newspapers all over the world.