Here's a well-written history of Britain told as a continuous narrative from Celtic times to the Thatcher era. Names and dates do not intrude on the real story: the changing nature of national power and the development of commerce and culture. Best of all, Strong, a reporter and broadcaster, does not neglect Britain's great cultural and scientific figures, e.g., Chaucer, Shakespeare, Indigo Jones, and Newton. The author chronicles changes in the church from Henry VIII to the present, as well as the religious practices introduced by groups like the Methodists. The lost civil war that created the United States is regarded as a necessary learning experience. The reforms engendered enabled the British to defeat the French and control 25 percent of the world's population by the 1880s. A small sample of the topics covered include the Industrial Revolution, the outlawing of slavery, and the Reform Act of 1832, which broadened Parliament's power base. Strong's Britain is a turbulent, exciting story that reader Stephen Thorne narrates with passionate enthusiasm.

What thread runs through this sweeping tapestry? For Strong, it is the gradual emergence of class distinctions over the centuries, leading to their eventual breakdown in our own times. Characters come alive in this book; great narrative is developed; kingdoms, colonies, empires emerge only to disappear, but with a semblance of order and reason.