History as you have never read it. This book, quite extraordinary in its richness and anecdotal detail, narrates the history of the British isles, its inhabitants and their prodigious achievements often at the furthest ends of the earth after immense hardship. In a series of short articles, there are facts in this book never before read about, and there is something new and strange on every page.

From the end of the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago) to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965,Adrian Sykes narrates the history and achievements of these islands,their inhabitants and their origins,through the stories of some 3000+ men & women who have shaped not just our history but the modern world. The story is interspersed with countless inventions,deeds of daring do and wickednesses,as well as the origins of innumerable words and phrases,often surprisingly early, rom Nosey Parker - Elizabeth I of her Archbishop of Canterbury,to mayonnaise - the battle of Mahon,which the victorious French admiral celebrated by inventing mayonnaise and after which we hanged Admiral Byng who lost it to encourage the others ,as Voltaire put it. Beautifully illustrated and with maps of exceptional clarity,this is a book hard to put down in which you learn something very surprising on every page.