The Oxford Companion to British History - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198605145 ISBN 13: 9780198605140

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Here is an updated Companion detailing the people and events that have shaped and defined life in Britain over 2,000 years of change. In The Oxford Companion to British History, Revised Edition, over 4,000 entries by more than 100 distinguished contributors offer a wealth of information and insight into the social, political, economic, scientific, cultural, and military aspects of the history of Britain. In addition to the entries on kings, queens, and battles, topics as diverse as gibbeting (the exhibiting of corpses of executed criminals in public), Eadgyth (the mistress of Harold II), and truck (the payment of wages in food and kind) can be found. Now available for the first time in paperback, the text has been updated and revised to take into account the events, people, and institutions that have made their mark over the past four years. The new and re-written entries further broaden the already extensive coverage, bringing the text up to the year 2002. There are several updated maps as well as a subject index, which groups headwords into thematic batches to provide an alternative way of accessing the entries.

About this title

Review:

From "Abbeys," monastic organizations that were important in local-level medieval government, to "Zutphen, Battle of," where the great poet Sir Philip Sidney lost his life in 1586, this 1,000-plus-page tome offers an erudite register of all things British. Editor John Cannon's emphases are sometimes idiosyncratic--the entry for the Beatles, inarguably influential in British and world history, is as short as that for "beagling," a particular kind of rabbit hunting. The Oxford Companion to British History is an invaluable and well-written resource for Anglophiles nonetheless.

About the Author:

John Cannon held the chair of Modern History at Newcastle-upon-Tyne until 1992. He has edited many books including The Kings & Queens of Britain (2001), the Dictionary of British History (2001) and The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians (1988).

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0198605145
• ISBN 13: 9780198605140
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1056
• Editor: Cannon John