Publisher Description
In this massive bestseller in England, one of Britain’s most popular and esteemed historians tells the epic story of the birth of the country.
Peter Ackroyd, whose work has always been underpinned by a profound interest in and understanding of England’s history, now tells the epic story of England itself.
In Foundation,the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England’s prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country’s most distant past—a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house—and describes in rich prose the successive waves of invaders who made England English, despite being themselves Roman, Viking, Saxon, or Norman French.
With his extraordinary skill for evoking time and place and his acute eye for the telling detail, Ackroyd recounts the story of warring kings, civil strife, and foreign wars. But he also gives us a vivid sense of how England’s early people lived: the homes they built, the clothes they wore, the food they ate, even the jokes they told. All are brought vividly to life through the narrative mastery of one of Britain’s finest writers.
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“[In] Foundation, his rambling, affectionate new history of the remote
English past…the history that interests him most is
the kind touching on national memory and a sense of place, ‘about longing and
belonging,’ in his memorable phrase…In a narrative that is relaxed,
unpretentious, and accessible, if at times somewhat hasty, he skillfully digests
the work of others without cutting very deep with his own analysis. The early
chapters, on the times before William the Conqueror, play especially to his strengths,
as he draws on the findings of modern archaeologists who have advanced our
understanding of how ancient Britons lived and how the various migrations and
invasions changed the nation.”—
New York Times Book Review
