The heroes and villains, triumphs and disasters of English history are instantly familiar -- from the Norman Conquest to Henry VIII, Queen Victoria to the two World Wars. But to understand their full significance we need to know the whole story. A Short History of England sheds new light on all the key individuals and events in English history by bringing them together in an enlightening account of the country's birth, rise to global prominence, and then partial eclipse. Written with flair and authority by Guardian columnist and London Times former editor Simon Jenkins, this is the definitive narrative of how today's England came to be. Concise but comprehensive, with more than a hundred color illustrations, this beautiful single-volume history will be the standard work for years to come.

Innovation, the sixth and final volume in Peter Ackroyd's magnificent History of England series, takes readers from the Boer War to the Millennium Dome almost a hundred years later. Innovation brings Peter Ackroyd's History of England to a triumphant close. Ackroyd takes readers from the end of the Boer War and the accession of Edward VII to the end of the twentieth century, when his great-granddaughter Elizabeth II had been on the throne for almost five decades. It was a century of enormous change, encompassing two world wars, four monarchs (Edward VII, George V, George VI and the Queen), the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the Labour Party, women's suffrage, the birth of the NHS, the march of suburbia and the clearance of the slums. It was a period that saw the work of the Bloomsbury Group and T.S. Eliot, of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, from the end of the post-war slump to the technicolor explosion of the 1960s, to free love and punk rock, and from Thatcher to Blair. A vividly readable, richly peopled tour de force, Innovation is Peter Ackroyd writing at the height of his powers.

Step into the tumultuous age of Stuart England with Peter Ackroyd's enlightening Civil War. Beginning with James I, the first Scottish king of England, it tracks an era of massive upheaval, ending with the dramatic flight of his grandson, James II, into exile. Civil War transports you to the heart of the 17th-century Britain, where you meet figures like James I with his shrewd perspectives on diverse matters, and Charles I, whose inept rule ignited the flames of the English Civil War. Ackroyd offers a brilliant – warts and all – portrayal of Charles's nemesis Oliver Cromwell, Parliament's great military leader and England's only dictator, who began his career as a political liberator but ended it as much of a despot as the king he executed. Beyond this political turmoil, Ackroyd also explores the rich cultural and literary contributions of the Jacobean era. This was a world where Shakespeare's masterpieces were penned, John Donne weaved his poetry and Thomas Hobbes crafted his philosophical marvel, Leviathan. Most importantly, get a glimpse of the extraordinary lives of common English men and women, their existence seeped in constant disruption and uncertainty. Civil War is a stirring account of a pivotal epoch, making it a must-read for history enthusiasts.

'Ackroyd makes history accessible to the layman' - Ian Thomson, Independent The penultimate volume of Peter Ackroyd’s masterful History of England series, Dominion begins in 1815 as national glory following the Battle of Waterloo gives way to post-war depression, spanning the last years of the Regency to the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901. In it, Ackroyd takes us from the accession of the profligate George IV whose government was steered by Lord Liverpool, who was firmly set against reform, to the reign of his brother, William IV, the 'Sailor King', whose reign saw the modernization of the political system and the abolition of slavery. But it was the accession of Queen Victoria, aged only eighteen, that sparked an era of enormous innovation. Technological progress – from steam railways to the first telegram – swept the nation and the finest inventions were showcased at the first Great Exhibition in 1851. The emergence of the middle classes changed the shape of society and scientific advances changed the old pieties of the Church of England, and spread secular ideas across the nation. But though intense industrialization brought boom times for the factory owners, the working classes were still subjected to poor housing, long working hours and dire poverty. It was a time that saw a flowering of great literature, too. As the Georgian era gave way to that of Victoria, readers could delight not only in the work of Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth but also the great nineteenth-century novelists: the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Thackeray, and, of course, Dickens, whose work has become synonymous with Victorian England. Nor was Victorian expansionism confined to Britain alone. By the end of Victoria’s reign, the Queen was also an Empress and the British Empire dominated much of the globe. And, as Ackroyd shows in this richly populated, vividly told account, Britannia really did seem to rule the waves.

Peter Ackroyd, one of Britain's most acclaimed writers, brings the age of the Tudors to vivid life in this monumental book in his The History of England series, charting the course of English history from Henry VIII's cataclysmic break with Rome to the epic rule of Elizabeth I. Rich in detail and atmosphere, Peter Ackroyd's Tudors is the story of Henry VIII's relentless pursuit of both the perfect wife and the perfect heir; of how the brief reign of the teenage king, Edward VI, gave way to the violent reimposition of Catholicism and the stench of bonfires under "Bloody Mary." It tells, too, of the long reign of Elizabeth I, which, though marked by civil strife, plots against the queen and even an invasion force, finally brought stability. Above all, however, it is the story of the English Reformation and the making of the Anglican Church. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, England was still largely feudal and looked to Rome for direction; at its end, it was a country where good governance was the duty of the state, not the church, and where men and women began to look to themselves for answers rather than to those who ruled them.