Product Description

The diverse peoples of Britain and Ireland are revealed not only by physical characteristics but also through structures and settlements, place names and dialects. Using the latest genetic and archaeological research, the author shows how different peoples traded, settled and conquered, establishing the 'tribal' and regional roots still apparent today. Its vast scope considers the impact of prehistoric peoples and Celtic tribes, Romans and Vikings, Saxons and Normans, Jews and Huguenots, as well as the increasing population movements of the last century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #226281 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

Review
'First-rate' DAILY EXPRESS 'A good background book. Massively informative and earthily evocative, it does some of the preliminary workd necessary to understand, if not cure, our current identity crisis.' -- Bryan Appleyard THE SUNDAY TIMES 'In The Tribes of Britain, [Miles] unpacks some of the chocolate box notions of what it is to be English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish or British... Miles is at his best in showing how many of the conventional views of the origins of British identities are more myth than history.' EVENING STANDARD '... a huge and fascinating subject... There is much to be learned here...' THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Miles's copiously fascinating account... is not only highly enjoyable and instructive, but very timely.' -- A C Grayling INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY '... scholarly but readable... a fascinating alternative to traditional history books.' FAMILY HISTORY MONTHLY 'A wonderful foray into British roots and hertiage.' GOOD BOOK GUIDE 'an engaging, informative and entertaining book... an excellent introduction to the complexities of British history and prehistory.' BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY

Review
'First-rate' (DAILY EXPRESS )

'A good background book. Massively informative and earthily evocative, it does some of the preliminary workd necessary to understand, if not cure, our current identity crisis.' (Bryan Appleyard THE SUNDAY TIMES )

'In The Tribes of Britain, [Miles] unpacks some of the chocolate box notions of what it is to be English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish or British... Miles is at his best in showing how many of the conventional views of the origins of British identities are more myth than history.' (EVENING STANDARD )

'... a huge and fascinating subject... There is much to be learned here...' (THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

'Miles's copiously fascinating account... is not only highly enjoyable and instructive, but very timely.' (A C Grayling INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY )

'... scholarly but readable... a fascinating alternative to traditional history books.' (FAMILY HISTORY MONTHLY )

'A wonderful foray into British roots and hertiage.' (GOOD BOOK GUIDE )

'an engaging, informative and entertaining book... an excellent introduction to the complexities of British history and prehistory.' (BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY )

FAMILY HISTORY MONTHLY
'... scholarly but readable... a fascinating alternative to traditional history books.'

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Book about the British People
When I asked for this book for Christmas from my wife, I had been under the impression it dealt with the genetics of the British people. The book does do this, but it is hardly the primary focus. I quickly was over any disappointment as the book captured my attention through sharp, crisp writing, a plethora of engaging facts, and seamless storytelling.

The book deals with the subject of just who the British people are and how they came to be. Woven into the tapestry of the tale are the histories of the pre-historic people of Britain, of the Celts and Picts, the Britons, the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and every people and culture who have contributed to the bloodlines of the British people.

This is not a history of the Kings and Queens of England, or the hundreds of battles fought, or of the Empire. It is truly a history and an examination of the people of the British Isles.

One quickly comes to understand that it is impossible to define virtually anyone in Britain as simply "English" or "Ango-Saxon" or "Irish" - that the vast internal and external migrations and transpositions of people, language and culture that have occured over the millenia serve to blur the lines that supposedly differentiate the various home nations in terms of ancestry.

So many notable books concentrate solely on the English or on the Scots or only on the Irish, and many books that focus on Britain give only passing mention to the home nations other than England and her people. The Tribes of Britain is an excellent bit of writing about the British people as a whole and would be of interest to students of history and to the many people with any sort of British ancestry.

Maps in the back
This book is a good with a wide range of disciplines used as source material. Having read other comments here, I suspect that the placement of ten pages of maps at the back of the book was not the best strategy by the publishers...

Well informed but tendentious
The book is very readable and lucid, but greater use of maps and charts would have helped. Miles is an archaologist and clearly most at home in prehistory and ancient history, though he provides a good if basic social and cultural history of the pre-modern period. The last chapter on contemporary Britain is by far the weakest, with a disappointingly thin and partial analysis and a couple of factually inaccurate throwaways - Miles is no demographer or social scientist, and he doesn't understand the economics of migration.

The theme of the book is Miles' attempt to prove the modern liberal thesis that Britons are a 'mongrel' society. True to some extent, but no 'race', nation or ethnic group in the world is "pure" - they are all genetically mixed "imagined communities" or historical accidents. There's nothing special about Britain in that regard. What's more, Miles himself cites evidence that contradicts his argument. The genetic links between today's Britons and Ice Age "Cheddar Man", and the growing consensus that the Anglo-Saxons didn't eliminate the native Britons, and may not have been very numerous, indicates that the majority of British people can probably trace an indigenous ancestry back thousands of years.

There are limits to the vision of Britain as an immigrant society, which is a modern political project designed to show that recent immigration is part of a historical continuum (again, only partly true).