Simon Schama is a historian of remarkable gifts and achievements, but I cannot believe he takes pride in this book, the middle part of a three-volume companion to his television series. He built his reputation as a historian of France and of the Netherlands. Now, turning to British history, he takes understandable alarm at the volume of specialised publication of recent decades and at the complication and bafflement engendered by an army of case-studies, not all of them broad in perspective. He yearns for the grand narratives and the argumentative boldness of Victorian historical writing. But whereas a Macaulay, or in our time a Hugh Trevor-Roper, is soon at home in a new subject or period and brings depth of reflection to it, Schama is for the most part on distant terms with his material and rarely gets below its surface. It is not that the book wants for intelligence or dexterity. It is ably organised and its general claims are supported by some skilful commentary on lavishly illustrated documents and artifacts. But even at its best the work is more clever than thoughtful, more showy than informative.

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