Synopses & Reviews
Irrepressible Adventures with Britannia is the latest addition to Wm Roger Louis's stimulating and acclaimed series, Adventures with Britannia. It draws upon a distinguished array of writers and scholars - historians, political scientists, journalists, novelists, biographers and English literature specialists - to guide the reader through a fascinating labyrinth of British culture, history and politics. Together, they provide a unique insight into the pivotal themes, political, literary and cultural, which have shaped British state and society. Including a comparison of A.J.P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper by Adam Sisman, a new appraisal of Prince Albert by Rosemary Hill, an assessment of Keats by Ferdinand Mount and a Diamond Jubilee portrait of Elizabeth II by Max Hastings, this book provides a rich mix of original ideas, historical and literary allusion, personality and anecdote, which together provide an intellectual adventure into the mainsprings of modern British and international society.
Review
"The main pleasure of a book like this is akin to that of listening to a series of assured after-dinner speakers, highly knowledgeable about their chosen subject and able to entertain as well as inform." - Alan Ross, Times Literary Supplement
About the Author
Wm. Roger Louis is Kerr Professor of English History and Culture and Distinguished Teaching Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. He is an Honorary Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford. His books include Imperialism at Bay (1976) The British Empire in the Middle East (1984), and Ends of British Imperialism (2006). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford History of the British Empire. In 2001 he was President of the American Historical Association an in 2013 he was awarded the Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature.
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Introduction
1. Prince Albert
2. One Man's Raj
3. The Economist
4. English Historical Review
5. MR and the BBC
6. David Astor and the Observer
7. John Keats
8. Robert Graves
9. Ivy Compton-Burnett
10. Dan Jacobson
11. Bloomsbury Reassessed
12. Carrington Revisited
13. Anthony Trollope
14. Edmund Gosse and J. R. Ackerley
15. Father
16. Sherlock Holmes
17. Tarzan
18. Harry Potter
19. The Black Hole of Calcutta
20. Prisons
21. Britain and Japan
22. A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper
23. Mrs. Thatcher
24. The Historians and Margaret Thatcher
25. Tony Benn
26. Elizabeth II
27. The Breakup of Britain
28. British Studies at the University of Texas, 1975-2013