Geography Is Destiny: Britain and the World, a 10,000 Year History
£12.99
‘Geography is Destiny’ tells the history of Britain and its changing relationships with Europe and the wider world, from its physical separation at the end of the Ice Age to the first flickers of a United Kingdom, struggles for the Atlantic, and rise of the Pacific Rim. Applying the latest archaeological evidence, Ian Morris explores how geography, migration, government and new technologies interacted to produce regional inequalities that still affect us today. He charts Britain’s geopolitical fortunes over thousands of years, revealing its transformation from a European satellite into a state at the centre of global power, commerce, and culture. But as power and wealth shift from West to East, does Britain’s future lie with Europe or the wider world?
‘Ian Morris has established himself as a leader in making big history interesting and understandable’ Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel’Morris succeeds triumphantly at cramming 10,000 years of history into a single book’ Robert Colvile, The TimesFor hundreds of years, Britannia ruled the waves and an empire on which the sun never set – but forthousands of years before that, Britain had been no more than a cluster of unimportant islands off Europe’s north-west shore.Drawing on the latest archaeological and historical evidence, Ian Morris shows how much the meaning of Britain’s geography has changed in the 10,000 years since rising seas began separating the Islesfrom the Continent, and how these changing meanings have determined Britons’ destinies.From being merely Europe’s fractious, feuding periphery – divided by customs, language and landscape, and always at the mercy of more powerful continental neighbours – the British turned themselves into a United Kingdom and put it at the centre of global politics, commerce and culture.But as power and wealth now shift from the West towards China, what fate awaits Britain in the twenty-first century?
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