Britain's Europe

Wide-ranging and thoughtful... a timely and important study that places Brexit and the difficulties of the EU in an illuminating historical context. -- PD Smith * Guardian * A fascinating, engaging book, which exemplifies how a balanced and mature long-term historical perspective might have informed present-day political policy -- Joad Raymond * BBC History Magazine * His book aims to demonstrate that the history of the British isles has never been an isolated one, and that our island story has always, in -reality, been continental. -- Mark Mazower * New Statesman * In his spirited new book, Britain's Europe , Brendan Simms, a historian at Cambridge University, argues that the whole notion of an island story is wrong. Britain's history, he says, is above all about continental Europe...Mr Simms makes a powerful case. * The Economist * With supreme confidence, Simms distils 1,000 years of history into a simple constant: Britain's role has always been to prevent the domination of the Continent by a single power...Britain, in other words, has always been part of Europe. To deny that fact is to ignore the past. -- Gerard Degroot * The Times * Entertaining -- Dominic Sandbrook * The Times * Like all truly stimulating and original works, this is a book worth reading even if one ultimately disagrees with the author's conclusions, or if the time is not yet ripe for their realisation -- Robert Gerwarth * Irish Times * A dazzling perspective on the current EU referendum debate * Prospect Magazine * Entertaining and cogently argued... an eloquent argument -- Tony Barber * Financial Times *