Product Description

Twenty-five million emigrants left the British Isles in the four hundred years after 1600, mainly travelling to America or to parts of the British Empire around the world. This huge exodus, the greatest of any nation before the twentieth century, accounts for much of Britain's wider impact on the world, in terms of cultural, social and political attitudes, and notably in the legacy of the English language as the most widely used global lingua franca. Britannia's Children is the first account of emigration from the British Isles as a whole, including England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (Ireland being part of the United Kingdom during the Great Famine and its classic age of emigration). Eric Richards traces the stages of this extraordinary movement from the days of Raleigh and the Mayflower to modern times, and shows the variety of motives that drove men and women to make the most momentous decisions of their lives. He also provides a mass of examples of individual cases, voyages, destinations and fates.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #746153 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
"admirably scholarly and objective book" Graham Stewart, The Spectator, 16 June 2004 "An academic study .. migrants' experiences, mainly good, but also bad and sometimes unknown, are sympathetically and engagingly told." Ancestors, August 2004.

Ancestors, August 2004
An academic study .. migrants' experiences, mainly good, but also bad and sometimes unknown, are sympathetically and engagingly told"

From the Author
Britannia's Children is about the millions of people who have emigrated from all parts of the British Isles over the past four centuries. Were they pushed out or were they free people stretching forth for new opportunities? This is a big story in which the individual migrant is the hero.