Books by Linda Colley

Award-winning historian Linda Colley shows the dawn of the modern world - through the advance of written constitutions.

In a year that sees a Scottish referendum on independence, the author analyses some of the forces that have unified Britain in the past. She examines the mythology of Britishness, and how far and why it has faded. She discusses the Acts of Union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and their limitations, while scrutinizing England's own fractures.

How was Great Britain made? And what does it mean to be British? This book examines how a more cohesive British nation was invented after 1707 and how this new national identity was nurtured through war, religion, trade, and empire.

Linda Colley uses these tales of ordinary individuals trapped in extraordinary encounters to re-evaluate the character and diversity of the British Empire. She shows how British attitudes to Islam, slavery, race, and American Revolutionaries look different once the captive's perspective is admitted.

In this book Linda Colley explores the fate of the tory party which has dominated both Parliament and the constituencies throughout of the reigns of William III and Anne.