Simon Schama: A History of Britain - Box Set

SIMON SCHAMA: A HISTORY OF BRITAIN VOLUME 1 3000BC-AD1087 'History, especially British history, with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.' Simon Schama In this epic series into Britain's past, Simon Schama paints a brilliant portrait of the life of our people,and asks questions of compelling importance for our future as well as our past. Beginnings Simon Schama starts his story in the Stone Age village of Skara Brae, Orkney. Over the next thousand years, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Christian missionaries arrive, fight, settle and leave their mark on what will become the nations of Britain. Conquest! 1066 is not the best remembered date in British history for nothing. In the space of nine hours while the Battle of Hastings raged, everything changed. Anglo-Saxon England became Norman and, for the next 300 years, it's fate was decided by dynasties of French rulers. VOLUME 2 1087-1348 Dynasty There is no saga more powerful than that of the warring dynasty-domineering father, beautiful, scheming mother and squabbling, murderous sons. And, in the years that followed the Norman Conquest, this was the drama played out on the stage of British history. Nations Nations is the epic account of how nations of Britain emerged from under the hammer of England's 'Longshanks' King Edward I, with a sense of who and what they were, which endures to this day. VOLUME 3 1348-1603 King Death It took only six years for the plague to ravage the British Isles. Its impact was to last for generations. But from the ashes of this trauma an unexpected and unique class of Englishman emerged. Burning Convictions Here Simon Schama charts the upheaval caused as a country renowned for its piety, whose king styled himself Defender of the Faith, turns into one of the most aggressive proponents of the new Protestant faith. The Body of the Queen This is the story of two queens-Elizabeth I the consummate politician and Mary Queen of Scots the Catholic mother. It is also the story of the birth of a nation.