★ 09/28/2015
Proceeding from prehistoric times to the present at a commanding pace, Tombs (coauthor, with Isabelle Tombs, of That Sweet Enemy), an expert at the University of Cambridge on Franco-British relations, focuses on England and the English while paying due regard to their Irish, Scot, and Welsh compatriots. No one will confuse this work with the celebrated, sweeping multivolume histories of Macauley, Trevelyan, and Churchill, but this is nevertheless a brilliant distillation of a vast tale and arguably the finest one-volume history of any nation and people ever written. Rare is the historian who can maintain balance amid the interpretive snares posed by such a large subject poses, especially while making “memory and its creation an inherent part of the story.” But Tombs succeeds, all the while clearly stating the bases for his judicious assessments. His lively coverage of social, cultural, and political history is dazzling, while his compressed reviews of such complicated matters as the Civil War of the 1640s, Victorianism, and English “decline” may be unsurpassable. Everyone from King Arthur to the Hobbit makes an appearance. It’s hard to identify a source Tombs hasn’t consulted or an apt quotation he’s neglected to slip in. Comprehensive, authoritative, and readable to a fault, this book should be on the shelves of everyone interested in its subject. Maps and illus. (Nov.)
Named a Book of the Year by the Daily Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement, The Times, Spectator, and The Economist
"Spectacular and massive. . . . It's a book for our times that should also become the standard text for the century to come." —David Frum, The Atlantic
“The English and Their History,” by Robert Tombs, is right to combine a fresh retelling of English history with a thoughtful analysis of the changing ways in which the English themselves have interpreted their past. It successfully does both. . . . In this book he bicycles pleasingly through the picturesque valleys and stormy moorlands of England’s long adversarial struggle with itself. . . . Tombs entertainingly describes England’s frequent aggressive adventures into other people’s countries, not least its immediate neighbors.” —Peter Hitchens, The New York Times Book Review
“Robert Tombs’s The English and their History is history at its best. He gives a fluent, elegant and abundantly energetic narrative from the Bronze Age to the Scottish Referendum of 2014….The final section of the book, covering the last half-century, is a triumph of precision and candour: I have not read history that is so important and exciting for years.” —Richard Davenport-Hines, Times Litereary Supplement (Books of the Year)
“As ambitious as it is successful….Packed with telling detail and told with gentle, sardonic wit, this vast and delightful book is exactly the weapon to throw at those who apologise for the past, denigrate the present and fear the future.” —Ben Macintyre, The Times (Books of the Year)
“In his massive, engaging and persuasive new book, Robert Tombs speaks up for English history, and sometimes for England itself.” —David Horspool, The Guardian
“The English and Their History, by the Professor of French history at Cambridge, Robert Tombs, is a work of supreme intelligence. In this vigorous, subtle and penetrating book, Tombs defies the proprieties of our politically motivated national history curriculum to rethink and revise notions of national identity. Tombs has done nothing less than narrate with rare freshness and confidence 2,000 years of English history....Although he is a historian of the grand sweep, his book is full of arresting details, quirky sidelights, telling quotes and delightful laconic humour…. Robert Tombs’s book is a triumph. In a literal sense it is definitive, for there is never a flash of ambiguity in any sentence….No history published this year has been of such resounding important to contemporary debates. Tombs, who is both fearless and non-partisan, deserves to be rewarded with a life peerage for this book. There can be no steadier, calmer and more informed adviser during the constitutional crises looming in the next two or three years.” —Richard Davenport-Hines, The Observer
“Tombs has succeeded magnificently. Learned, pithy and punchy, with a laudable sense of narrative sweep and a bracing willingness to offer bold judgments, his survey is a tremendous achievement, and deserves to become the standard history for years to come….All in all, Tombs’s book is a superb feat of compression and analysis.” —Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
“[A] compelling and intriguing analysis….vast in scope and full to the brim with scholarship that has been painstakingly absorbed only to be disgorged with an exhilarating mixture of conviction and lightness of touch.” —Christopher Silvester, Financial Times
“Fascinating….I found it especially strong on English-French relations, and early modern times….Definitely recommended, I quickly became addicted to this book.” —Tyler Cowen, "Marginal Revolution"
“Conducting a vast yet readable and sharply focused tour through the ages, and contrasting the English with their Celtic and continental neighbours, the thread is the evolution and paradoxical elusiveness of Englishness....jammed with succulent nuggets.” —Sinclair McKay, Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)
“Robert Tombs’s timely and magisterial The English and their History … [is] a great achievement: you’re in the hands of a learned and considerate guide whose judgments, whether you agree with them or not, you can be sure will be well-founded. A very good read and possibly the most important contribution to the subject since Trevelyan.” —Alan Judd, Spectator (Books of the Year)
“The perfect starting point for anyone who wants to grapple with the complexity of the English question….[Tombs] writes beautifully; there isn’t a lazy sentence in this text.”—The Economist
“Commanding. . . . a brilliant distillation of a vast tale and arguably the finest one-volume history of any nation and people ever written. . . . Tombs succeeds, all the while clearly stating the bases for his judicious assessments. His lively coverage of social, cultural, and political history is dazzling. . . . It’s hard to identify a source Tombs hasn’t consulted or an apt quotation he’s neglected to slip in. Comprehensive, authoritative, and readable to a fault, this book should be on the shelves of everyone interested in its subject.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred)
"Massive yet accessible. . . . wonderfully reasoned and tidily structured...surprisingly approachable. . . . lucid, engaging, and pleasantly nondidactic. .”—Kirkus (Starred)
★ 10/15/2015
Memory and experiences formed and continues to sustain one of the oldest surviving nation-states today. These are Tombs's (history, Cambridge Univ.; That Sweet Enemy) unifying themes in his hefty single-volume history of the English people. The people, who took the name "English," emerged in the eighth century to establish an empire and by 1,000 CE had created the kingdom of England. In a fast-paced narrative, Tombs explores the characteristics—a sense of kinship, cultural similarity, participatory government, representative institutions—that have given the English their identity for the past millennium. Selectively taking material from the vast array of primary and secondary sources of English history, he integrates the process of memory and its creation into the story, emphasizing creators and carriers such as language, religious and political institutions, and historical writing. VERDICT Anglophiles interested in a one-volume, comprehensive history of England will savor this study, while scholars and professionals in political science and government will find in it useful perspectives. Thoroughly researched, the narrative flows effortlessly.—Glen Edward Taul, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY
This broad, sweeping history of the English from their earliest period to the present is a fascinating audiobook read by James Langton, his voice flowing steadily and fluidly for 43 hours. Topics include the mythology of England’s beginnings—including King Arthur, Boudica, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—and moving through Shakespeare, Gibbon, and Churchill. Political and military history is interspersed with discussions of cultural, social, and linguistic changes. From the Roman period through the Norman Conquest in 1066 and into the contemporary period through 2014, this history touches on information both familiar and new. Langton narrates intuitively using natural phrasing, fluid tones, and precise British enunciation. His narration is perfect for this contemporary view of the island nation that has influenced almost everything and everyone throughout the world. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
★ 2015-08-16
A massive yet accessible study of the historical and linguistic continuity that make up the English people. In a wonderfully reasoned and tidily structured book presented in one surprisingly approachable doorstop, English scholar of Anglo-French relations Tombs (History/Univ. of Cambridge; The Paris Commune, 1871, 1999, etc.) finds much to (quietly) celebrate in English history since ancient times, especially compared to the more violent convolutions that have plagued neighboring European and Asian states—France, Russia, China, and others. The author embarks on his narrative with an eye toward how the English have regarded and valued themselves, a "collective memory" as recorded in Latin as early as the eighth century by Northumbrian monk Bede. He noted the English people's significance as deriving from their early Christian conversion, allowing them early access to power and allies and a "much better chance of survival." Thus, Tombs sees English identity as coalescing around Christian ministries, centers of political, economic, and even military power. A "customary law" emerged, a strong administrative system based on the "scir" (shire), governed for the king and involving, most important, a widespread system of participation in government. The "community of the realm," as reinforced by the Magna Carta (1215) and incipient Parliament of 1258, allowed the political continuity to prevail even after the cataclysmic upheavals of the Norman Conquest (1066). Moreover, as Tombs emphasizes, the English language displayed extraordinary durability in the wake of the French invasion, moving from vernacular to officialese to law and poetry, becoming a "language for a nation." While England's history is enormously complex, Tombs sharply organizes it by galvanizing themes, from the devastating religious wars (1500-1700) and the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and Victorian era to the two world wars and the debate over "an age of decline." What the author calls a "national nonchalance" is perhaps surprising in light of this unique continuity of political structure and cultural treasures. European history buffs and readers undaunted by a 1,000-page history will find a lucid, engaging, and pleasantly nondidactic book, with helpful maps.