The British Inheritance: A Treasury of Historic Documents

Britain's 1000-year prominence on the international stage endures. Posterity owes the English language (spoken now by more than half the world's population) a tradition of democratic freedom,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520224701
• ISBN13: 9780520224704
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 12.8" x 1.0" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 13 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 8 to 12

Customer Reviews

A lovely time-sink . . .

I've been a working (though non-teaching) historian for more than three decades, and while I'm familiar with historiographical theories, and cliometrics, and other purely intellectual pursuits, I still confess a preference for "tangible," material history. Maybe it's my training as an archivist, but I get a serious thrill from seeing, perhaps even handling, an original document. If you mentioned "historic documents" to most people, they would think of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. My interests run somewhat earlier, however: I'd think first of Domesday Book, nearly five times as old as the Declaration, and arguably of far more pervasive influence on the U.S. Hallam is on the staff of the Public Record Office, where the Book is housed, so that's her first choice, too, together with Nennius's "History of the Britons," the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and (of course) Magna Carta. But this gorgeously illustrated oversized volume goes on to portray a large number of original charters, treaties, and letters. Examples of William Caxton's printing are here, and a Shakespeare First Folio, and a list of the burgesses of the Virginia Company, and the Declaration of Rights with which Parliament hedged their offer of the throne to William and Mary. Then, in the modern period, you'll find correspondence of Prince Charles Stewart (the Young Pretender), and Clive writing home with news of his victories in India, and maps of the enclosures that accompanied the Agricultural Revolution, and Radical political pamphlets from the 1830s, and the manuscript of _Pickwick Papers,_ right up to beer advertisements from the 1890s (deposited at the PRO to register copyright), police reports of the arrest of suffragettes, Edward VIII's Instrument of Abdication, and Paul McCartney's handwritten lyrics to "Yesterday." The accompanying text is excellent and I've spent many pleasant hours perusing the illustrations.

A Wonderful Book For British History Buffs to Own

This is a typically fascinating book by someone who is truly an expert on British history, Elizabeth Hallam. Ms. Hallam has served as editor for a variety of books concentrating on the ancient and medieval historic periods of England's past - such as The Plantagenant Chronicles - and all her works wonderfuly combine text and beautiful color pictures, maps and large photos to bring us back to the era they are describing. Ms. Hallam's latest work, The British Inheritence, continues this pattern. It concentrates on nearly 100 of the most important documents in British history - the Domesday Book, Magna Carta, etc. - and does so with lucid and descriptive text, which outlines the documents, their history and significance, and best of all, terrific photos of each of the the documents described. And unlike in some other books, the photos of the documents outlined are not small, postage-stamp sized illustrations, but instead are shown, generally in full color, and large enough for the reader to actually be able to make out the words and signatures themselves! Again, to anyone who is at all interested in the history of England, in its famous events, its colorful characters, its kings and its queens, this cofee table book is a wonderful edition to own, and to place in one's library as not only an important book on history in its own right, but also as a work that is that is just plain fun to look at and savor!