I should preface this by saying that I am not a person who usually reads histories for fun, but this book is quite impressive. Salway manages to present a massive amount of detail without overwhelming the reader. At no point is the narrative stuffy or dull, and it is frequently amusing and very interesting. I would have prefered at least some photos or drawings (there are none), but the facts and commentary are colorful enough to keep you interested. Based on other books I've read on this period, and a course on the topic, Salway's information seems quite accurate. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Roman history and culture, Celtic history (what there is of it), and the relationships between Britain and the rest of the ancient world. Most historians seem wed to the dry listing of dates and battles, but Salway presents enough cultural information to keep things interesting enough for laymen (or even anthropologists...). Its a bit long - several hundred pages, but I highly recommend this book.

To understand Roman Britain one ought to understand the Roman Empire of which it was a part: the division between East and West, the various potentates in Gaul and Britain and so on. It also helps to understand who the various emperors were, their personalities and the problems they were facing outside of Britain.

A short book like this one cannot discuss in detail the environment within which Roman Britain existed and then disappeared. So a reader is left with a general impression of a world coming to an end.

Every now and then an historical book comes along that changes the way one looks at history. Peter Salway's Roman Britain does just that. He gets past a lot of the speculation people have about historical "forces" and looks at a portion of history that is skipped over as irrelevant in terms of the choices people made and the consequences of those choices. He shows Roman Britain to be one of the many "pivotal" parts of British history and an interesting one as well.

The book shown above is the hardcover edition. It's also published, without illustrations, in five paperback volumes. I read only THE TUDORS AND STUARTS, which had no illustrations other than two or three maps and graphs. The first half of the book, about the Tudors, was written by one man, and the second half, about the Stuarts, by another. The volume was short, only 142 pages.

This is my favorite period of British history and the one with which I am most familiar, but still, I found the text confusing. I think there were several misplaced lines of type in the second half. Maybe a writer can't do much in 70 pages to elucidate a period, and probably the illustrations would have distracted from the sketchy text. The writing was not lively.

The very last section is called "Intellectual and Religious Life," but it was mostly about religious life. Literature is almost totally ignored throughout the volume. Pepys is never mentioned.

There is no index. Perhaps the complete, one-volume version has an index, and the publisher didn't want to go to the trouble of compiling indexes for the individual volumes. Still, a history book without an index is unthinkable.

On the whole, the book was disappointing.

I'm a half-educated American, with the vaguest notions of British history. I bought this book hoping to be able to understand the story of the British Isles, in a more or less clear outline. That didn't happen: after 200 pages, I tossed the book, wondering just who it was written for. Here's why I tossed it:

(1) It doesn't have an author. Instead, it has a bunch of authors, each apparently assigned a certain portion of British history to cover. The problem is that none of the authors seem to have consulted each other, nor did the editor seem to edit. On every other page, you see a fact or definition repeated (by a previous author), or a topic referenced (but uncovered by a previous author). History is a messy thing, but it has to be organized to be learned, and any hope of presenting material in terms of themes or movements is lost, because styles and approaches switch radically from author to author, from clear and sparse, to confusing and overly-detailed.

(2) It should have an author. This sounds like point (1), but hear me out: the editor, Mr. Morgan, claims that writing grand history, spanning the length of the British past, just can't be written anymore. It is better, rather, to have specialists write about their specialities. Sounds good in theory, but is just abominable when placed next to comprehensive histories written by single authors. Toynbee and Trevleyan wrote such history earlier. And J. Roberts writes such history now, particularly his History of Europe, and History of the World, two models of lucid historical writing that make this disjointed compilation look like an ill-considered mishmash.

(3) It should have an audience. Or at least a different audience: the average intelligent reader wants a clean, interesting exposition of the important events and currents of the past. While some chapters achieve that, the most seem to be written not to the Average Reader, but to the Rival Colleague. And so we see a few facts casually presented, and then a sudden digression into some piece of scholarly minutae that leaves the reader (me, that is) pexplexed.

(4) It should teach historical knowledge, not assume it. This is one of those histories that assumes from the onset that you know all the relevant history. That might be OK for a narrow scholarly article, but it's an awful presumption for a comprehensive history. I read dozens of pages discussing the 'Domesday Book,' its importance, and its effects. The authors never thought to enlighten the ignorant, and explain what this Domesday Book was (an very old tax survey). Things like this litter every page.

From previous reading, I've learned that good history can be written. From reading this, I've learned that very bad history can be written, too.

This is a good book for a reader who is little like me. I have no training in British history and little in Western. I read quite a bit of history and don't mind a challenging work, though, which lets me get through most histories without too much frustration. This book often lacked the context with which self-teaching historians can teach themselves, even with frequent map- and index-checking.

The chapters of this book are all written by different authors, each one clearly an expert on the subject of his individual chapter. The authors do not agree on their audience. For instance, Gillingham's chapter on the early middle ages was clearly written, had several maps and followed a timeline before ending with a thematic look at the economy and political structure of the period. The very next chapter, Griffiths' chapter on the late middle ages, skips around by dozens of years within a single paragraph, mentions towns in France without maps and assumes foreknowledge of the battles of the Hundred Year war. Unfortunately, this book contains more chapters like the latter than the former.

I suspect that a European or an American with a basic familiarity of British history would find this a very useful intermediate level book with which to learn or re-discover an overview of Britain. The handiness of one volume written by many experts providing an overview of such a long history is what is right with this book. To those with some background in the subject, this book will be extremely convenient and useful. For someone without European geographic knowledge or a recognition of the figures in British history, even a patient and attentive reading will lead to frustrating hunts for the background of many important figures mentioned once within the narrative and to pointless searches through inadequate maps.