Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypes, language and more, this book includes stories and anecdotes that provide a portrait of the English nation and its people.

Offers the author's personal take on the most important and influential period of our national past. Using the paintings of the era as the starting point, this title explores themes of family, urban life, industry, empire, and imagination to uncover truths (and explode some myths) about Victorian Britain.

An anthology, featuring both contemporary and historical writing about fishing in prose and verse, covering various things from tench tickling to piranha attacks.

Provides information about kings, queens, princes and princesses - who they are and what they're for. This book includes details such as: how Albania came to advertise in England for a king; which English queen gave birth in front of 67 people; and, how meeting the Queen is a bit scary - whoever you are.

Presents an account of the author's experience as a police officer in imperial Burma. This collection features the essays that include classics such as My Country Right or Left , How the Poor Die and Such, Such were the Joys , his memoir of the horrors of public school, as well as discussions of Shakespeare, sleeping rough, and boys' weeklies.

What makes politicians tick? Where do politicians come from? How do they get elected? What do they do all day? And why do they seek power? This book addresses these and other questions.

A portrait of the Victorian world that takes readers on a journey through the birth of modern Britain. Using the paintings of the era as a starting point, it tells us stories of urban life, family, faith, industry and empire that helped define the Victorian spirit and imagination.

Despite its flaws, democracy is the least bad form of government we can imagine. It always starts so promisingly - the exhilaration of that moment in the tatty old polling booth as you make your 'X'. Even the most apparently popular government will eventually fall. This title looks at why governments fail to live up to our expectations.