The Isles - Tapa dura

As the public debate about Britishness grows ever more strident, Norman Davies has written a radical history of the 'British Isles' including Ireland. It examines their history less from the standpoint of an insider than that of an outsider looking in.
The Isles is a revolutionary work which repeatedly connects offshore developments with parallel events on the Continent. The Celtic Supremacy in the last centuries BC is presented in the light of a Celtic world stretching all the way from Iberia to Asia Minor. Roman Britain (which covered less than half of the British Isles) is seen not as a unique or insular phenomenon but is compared to the other frontier regions of the Roman Empire, such as Germany. The Viking Age is viewed not only through the eyes of the invaded but from the standpoint of the invaders themselves - Norse, Danes, and Normans. Plantagenet England is seen, like the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as an extension of medieval France. The purpose of this 'integrationist' approach is to challenge the traditional nationalist picture of 'eternal England' - a unique country formed at an early date by Anglo-Saxon kings which evolved in isolation and, except for the Norman Conquest, was only marginally affected by Continental affairs. Instead, a new picture of the Isles emerges, one of four countries - England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales -constantly buffeted by Continental storms and repeatedly transformed by them. The result is a richly layered historical legacy where Celtic, Roman, Germanic, Norse, Norman, and Angevin traditions interrelate long after the period of their ascendencies.