Product Description

The Britain of 55 BC was a very different place to the Britain of 2002. The main preoccupation back then was fear of Roman invasion; there was no genetically modified food, no New Labour, no Mad Cow's Disease, and no Euro, all things which are making history today. The Oxford Companion to British History, first published in 1997, described in Writing Magazine as 'the ultimate in reference books', details and analyses the people and events that have shaped and defined life in Britain over 2,000 years of political, social, and cultural change. In over 4,000 entries, under the editorial guidance of John Cannon, over 100 distinguished contributors offer a wealth of information and insight into the social, political, economic, scientific, cultural, and military aspects of the history of Britain. As well as the expected kings, queens, leaders, and battles, topics as diverse as gibbeting (the exhibiting of corpses of executed criminals in public), Eadgyth (the mistress of Harold II), truck (the payment of wages in food and kind) and buses (road vehicles carrying passengers by short stages on fixed routes) can be found within the A-Z entries. Now available for the first time in paperback, the text has been updated and revised to take into account the events, people, and institutions that have made their mark over the past four years. The new and re-written entries that make this revised edition also broaden the already extensive coverage further, bringing the text in line with the year 2002. New and re-written entries include: Culture: advertising People: Paddy Ashdown, Betty Boothroyd, Gordon Brown, Wilkie Collins, Clement Davies, John Dee, Iain Duncan Smith, William Etty, Benjamin Franklin, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Gissing, Joseph Grimond, William Hague, John Harrison, Charles Kennedy, Dan Leno, L. S. Lowry, James Molyneaux, George Robey, David Rothesay, David Steel, William Stubbs, Jeremy Thorpe, David Trimble, Prince William Places: American cemetery, Burley-on-the-hill, diocese of Chester, Clarendon palace, Kenwood, diocese of Liverpool, Mozambique, Pembroke castle, Yorkshire East Riding Issues: democracy, devolution, maps, referenda, terrorism Events: battle of New Orleans, Nootka Sound crisis, Ochakov crisis In addition to A-Z entries the Companion includes a section of maps showing Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon England and early Scotland, Wales in the 13th century, the Angevin Empire, English and Welsh dioceses in 1543, the English Civil War, British and Irish counties, urban development, Europe in the First World War, the retreat from empire, and German hegemony in the Second World War. There are also a number of genealogies of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, Glyndwr's ancestry, the houses of Lancaster and York, the Tudors and the Stuarts, the Stuart and Hanoverian lines, and Victoria and her descendants. There is also a subject index, which groups headwords into thematic batches to provide an alternative way of accessing the entries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #569057 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1056 pages

Review
"The range is impressive...truly (almost) all of human life is here."-The Observer (England) reference"--Robert Blake, Sunday Times
"A book of great scope."--The Sunday Times (London)

About the Author
Professor John Cannon held the chair of Modern History at Newcastle upon Tyne until 1992. For OUP he has edited many books including the first edition of The Oxford Companion to British History (1997), (with Anne Hargreaves) The Kings & Queens of Britain (2001), and the Dictionary of British History (2001). The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians, which he edited in 1988, won a Library Association prize for reference works.

Customer Reviews

A handy reference for all history students
I've just finished a history degree and found this to be a very useful volume to flesh out people and issues with which I wasn't familiar. The range is enormous, and entries give sufficient context and detail to offer genuine help. Yes, there's bound to be a dog-eared copy in the library, but that's no use if you're writing an essay in the small hours and you need a date or biographical details in a hurry! The net will also provide you with the information contained, but perhaps not as easily accessible. A sound investment for students of British history.

Excellent reference book for someone in college or doing a degree
As someone else has commentated when doing a degree that they used this book. I did exactly the same for reference when I did not know a certain something. This book is brill. Jonestly if you want a reference book for British History in the 20th century then get this book. I was tempted to sell this book on Amazon, but I am not going to do because I will proably use the book for the rest of my life.