The History of England

The History of England is Peter Ackroyd’s six-volume narrative survey of the country from its earliest settlement to the close of the twentieth century. The sequence begins with prehistoric communities, Roman Britain and the kingdoms that emerged after Rome, then follows the Norman and Plantagenet monarchies, the Tudors and Stuarts, the constitutional and industrial revolutions, the Victorian empire and the upheavals of modern Britain.

Across the series, political change is set beside religion, law, literature, work and domestic life. Ackroyd moves between monarchs, ministers, wars and institutions and the experiences of ordinary people, using buildings, customs, language and material remains to show how repeated conquest and social transformation created both rupture and continuity in English history.