This book encompasses the histories of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and also considers the relationships between the different parts of the British Isles. Six chapters examine key themes in turn: society and population, economic life, religion, intellectual life and cultural expression, kingdoms and dominions at peace and at war, and kingship and government.

Here Chris Williams and Andy Croll, two distinguished historians of twentieth-century Britain, particularly Wales, marshal seventeen fellow historians to describe the momentous twentieth-century history of southeast Wales. The book is the fifth and last volume in a comprehensive history of Gwent/Monmouthshire from prehistoric times to the present day. Chapters detail the two world wars and deep depression that tested the resilience of the county s people, as well as how the decline of mining and heavy industry shifted the balance of the county s economy. Others analyze the life and leisure of...