Coal is the commodity that made Britain. Dirty and polluting though it is, this black rock has acted as a midwife to genius. It drove industry, religion, politics, empire and trade. It powered the industrial revolution, turned Britain into the first urban nation and is the industry that made almost all others possible. In this brilliant social history, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of coal mining in England, Scotland and Wales from Roman times, through the birth of steam power to war, nationalisation, pea-souper smogs, industrial strife and the picket lines of the Miner’s Strike. Written in the captivating style of his bestselling book The English, Paxman ranges widely across Britain to explore stories of engineers and inventors, entrepreneurs and industrialists – but whilst coal inevitably helped the rich become richer, the story told by Black Gold is first and foremost a history of the working miners – the men, women and often children who toiled in appalling conditions down in the mines; the villages that were thrown up around the pit-head. Almost all traces of coal-mining have vanished from Britain but with this brilliant history, Black Gold demonstrates just how much we owe to the black stuff.

Coal is the commodity that made Britain. Dirty and polluting though it is, this black rock has acted as a midwife to genius. It drove industry, religion, politics, empire and trade. It powered the industrial revolution, turned Britain into the first urban nation and is the industry that made almost all others possible. In this brilliant social history, Jeremy Paxman tells the story of coal mining in England, Scotland and Wales from Roman times, through the birth of steam power to war, nationalisation, pea-souper smogs, industrial strife and the picket lines of the Miner’s Strike. Written in the captivating style of his bestselling book The English, Paxman ranges widely across Britain to explore stories of engineers and inventors, entrepreneurs and industrialists – but whilst coal inevitably helped the rich become richer, the story told by Black Gold is first and foremost a history of the working miners – the men, women and often children who toiled in appalling conditions down in the mines; the villages that were thrown up around the pit-head. Almost all traces of coal-mining have vanished from Britain but with this brilliant history, Black Gold demonstrates just how much we owe to the black stuff.

Jeremy Paxman's unique portrait of the Victorian age takes readers on an exciting journey through the birth of modern Britain. Using the paintings of the era as a starting point, he tells us stories of urban life, family, faith, industry and empire that helped define the Victorian spirit and imagination. To Paxman, these paintings were the television of their day, and his exploration of Victorian art and society shows how these artists were chronicling a world changing before their eyes. This enthralling history is Paxman at his best - opinionated, informed, witty, surprising - and a glorious reminder of how the Victorians made us who we are today.

In The English Jeremy Paxman sets out to find about the English. Not the British overall, not the Scots, not the Irish or Welsh, but the English. Why do they seem so unsure of who they are? Jeremy Paxman is to many the embodiment of Englishness yet even he is sometimes forced to ask: who or what exactly are the English? And in setting about addressing this most vexing of questions, Paxman discovers answers to a few others. Like: Why do the English actually enjoy feeling persecuted? What is behind the English obsession with games? How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and to food? Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy? Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypyes, language and much, much more, The English brims over with stories and anecdotes that provide a fascinating portrait of a nation and its people.

The Story of Britain during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Find out how Britain changed in this entrancing, lively portrait of Britain's Elizabethan Age by bestselling writer and broadcaster Andrew Marr Britain changed fundamentally during the Queen's long, distinguished reign. So who made modern Britain the country it is today? How do we sum up the kind of people we are? What did it mean to be the new Elizabethans? In this wonderfully told history, spanning back to when Queen Elizabeth became queen in 1953, Andrew Marr traces the people who have made Britain the country it is today. From the activists to the artists, the sports heroes to the innovators, these people pushed us forward, changed the conversation, encouraged us to eat better, to sing, think and to protest. They got things done. How will our generation be remembered in a hundred years' time? And when you look back at Britain's toughest moments in the past seventy years, what do you learn about its people and its values? In brilliantly entertaining style and with unexpected insights into some of our sung and unsung heroes, this is our story as Elizabethans - the story of how 1950s Britain evolved into the diverse country we live in today. In short, it is the history of modern Britain. Featuring: David Attenborough. Marcus Rashford. Jan Morris. Diana Dors. Bob Geldof. David Olusoga. Elizabeth David. Zaha Hadid. Frank Crichlow. Quentin Crisp. Dusty Springfield. Captain Tom - and many others.

An Illustrated History of Britain traces the development of the nation from prehistoric times to the present day. It looks at British history not merely in terms of kings, queens and battles, but also emphasises economic, social and intellectual forces and how these affected the everyday lives of people from different sections of society. An Illustrated History of Britain is a history of Britain, not just of England. It looks at major developments within Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well as their relations with England.

In On Royalty Jeremy Paxman delves deep into Britain's royal past. What is the point of Kings and Queens? What do they do all day? And what does it mean to be one of them? Jeremy Paxman is used to making politicians explain themselves - but royalty has always been off limits. Until now. He takes a long hard look at our present incumbents to find out just what makes them tick. Along the way he discovers some fascinating and little-known details. Such as: how Albania came to advertise in England for a king which English queen gave birth in front of 67 people how easy it is to beat up future kings of England and how meeting the Queen is a bit scary - whoever you are ... No other book will tell you quite as much about our kings, queens, princes and princesses: who they are and what they're for.

Take a journey around the archaeological and cultural remains of Roman Britain with the award-winning author of Greek Myths. This is a book about the encounter with Roman Britain: about what the idea of 'Roman Britain' has meant to those who came after Britain's 400-year stint as province of Rome - from the medieval mythographer-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edward Elgar and W.H. Auden. What does Roman Britain mean to us now? How were its physical remains rediscovered and made sense of? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Charlotte Higgins has traced these tales by setting out to discover the remains of Roman Britain for herself, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a splendid, though not particularly reliable, VW camper van. Via accounts of some of Britain's most intriguing, and often unjustly overlooked ancient monuments, Under Another Sky invites us to see the British landscape, and British history, in an entirely fresh way: as indelibly marked by how the Romans first imagined, and wrote, these strange and exotic islands, perched on the edge of the known world, into existence.

Discover the pivotal political, military, and cultural events that shaped British and Irish history, from Stone Age Britain to the present day, in this revised and updated book. Combining over 700 photographs, maps, and artworks with accessible text, the History of Britain and Ireland is an invaluable resource for families, students, and anyone seeking to learn more about the fascinating story of the England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Spanning six distinct periods of British and Irish history, this book is the best way to find out how Britain transformed with the Norman rule, fought two world wars in the 20th century, and faced new economic challenges in the 21st century. DK's visual guide places key figures - from Alfred the Great to Winston Churchill - and major events - from Roman invasion to the Battle of Britain - in their wider context, making it easier than ever before to learn how they influenced Britain and Ireland's development through the age of empire into the modern era.

Britain is a small country but it has a long history. Two thousand years ago it was part of the Roman Empire. In the 1930s the British Empire was the biggest empire in world history. In the past, kings and queens fought to rule Britain. Discover how wars, revolutions and religion have changed its history. Read about the different countries of the United Kingdom – and the great men and women who have shaped the British nation.

Funerary rituals show us what people thought about mortality; how they felt about loss; what they believed came next. From Roman cremations and graveside feasts, to deviant burials with heads rearranged, from richly furnished Anglo Saxon graves to the first Christian burial grounds in Wales, Buried provides an alternative history of the first millennium in Britain. As she did with her pre-history of Britain in Ancestors, Professor Alice Roberts combines archaeological finds with cutting-edge DNA research and written history to shed fresh light on how people lived: by examining the stories of the dead.

An authoritative and radical rethinking of the history of Ancient Britain and Ancient Ireland, based on remarkable new archaeological finds. British history is traditionally regarded as having started with the Roman Conquest. But this is to ignore half a million years of prehistory that still exert a profound influence. Here Francis Pryor examines the great ceremonial landscapes of Ancient Britain and Ireland – Stonehenge, Seahenge, Avebury and the Bend of the Boyne – as well as the discarded artefacts of day-to-day life, to create an astonishing portrait of our ancestors. This major re-revaluation of pre-Roman Britain, made possible in part by aerial photography and coastal erosion, reveals a much more sophisticated life in Ancient Britain and Ireland than has previously been supposed.

Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves.

A social history of 1980s Britain, told through the sport of the time. Travel back to the 1980s - to Botham's Ashes and the Brixton riots; the Moscow Olympics and the miners' strike; the Crucible Theatre and the Falklands - to explore how we got to where we are now. Discover how sport became fully entwined in our national story; how sporting heroes were made, and destroyed; how 'wars' were fought on the pitch; and how sport responded to - and drove cultural change in - our society. From Sebastian Coe to Margaret Thatcher, John Barnes to the ZX Spectrum, Martina Navratilova to Section 28, Everybody Wants to Rule the World speaks to our treasured memories of eighties sports while also throwing light on where things went deeply wrong. In so doing it tells nothing less than the story of how British sport came into the modern era.

This beautiful hardback gift book is a stunning visual journey through Black British history for younger readers by award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga and illustrated by Jake Alexander and Melleny Taylor. The essential starting place for anyone who wants to learn about Black British History. David Olusoga's thought provoking text charts the forgotten histories of Black people in Britain from Roman times right through to the present day. From Roman Africans guarding Hadrian's Wall, to an African trumpeter in the court of Henry the Eighth, Black Georgians fighting for the abolition of slavery, Black soldiers fighting for Britain in the First World War, Windrush and right up today. These are the stories that brought us all together in this country. When did Africans first come to Britain? Who are the well-dressed black children in Georgian paintings? Why did the American Civil War disrupt the Industrial Revolution? These and many other questions are answered in this essential introduction to 1800 years of the Black British history. This children's edition of the bestseller Black and British: A Forgotten History is beautifully illustrated in full-colour with maps, portrait ga

In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean. This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalised. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all. Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire. It shows that the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery, and that black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of both World Wars. Black British history is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation. It is not a singular history, but one that belongs to us all. Unflinching, confronting taboos, and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries.