A New York Times 2016 Notable BookRobert Tombs’s momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions ca...

THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERGeography comes before history. Islands cannot have the same history as continental plains. The United Kingdom is a European country, but not the same kind of European country as Germany, Poland or Hungary. For most of the 150 centuries during which Britain has been inhabited it has been on the edge, culturally and literally, of mainland Europe.In this succinct book, Tombs shows t...

Here is an incomparably rich portrait of France in the years when the disparate elements that made up the fragmented kingdom of the ancien regime were forged into the modern nation. The survey begins with an exploration of national obsessions and attitudes. It considers the tendency to revolution and war, the preoccupation with the idea of a New Order and the deep strain of national paranoia that was to be intensified by the dramatic debacle of the Franco-Prussian War. Robert Tombs then in...

The Paris Commune was the biggest and last popular revolution in western Europe - ending the cycle of revolutions that started in 1789. The Parisians, reeling from defeat in the Franco-Prussian War set up their own revolutionary administration. Government troops eventually retook the city and took a terrible revenge: thousands died in the bloodbath that followed. The short-lived Commune and its repression cast a long shadow. It exposed deep divisions in French society and became a potent i...

Brought to you by Penguin.Geography comes before history. Islands cannot have the same history as continental plains. The United Kingdom is a European country, but not the same kind of European country as Germany, Poland or Hungary. For most of the 150 centuries during which Britain has been inhabited it has been on the edge, culturally and literally, of mainland Europe.In this succinct book, Tombs shows that the decision to leave the EU is historically exp...

That Sweet Enemy brings both British wit (Robert Tombs is a British historian) and French panache (Isabelle Tombs is a French historian) to bear on three centuries of the history of Britain and France. From Waterloo to Chirac’s slandering of British cooking, the authors chart this cross-channel entanglement and the unparalleled breadth of cultural, economic, and political influence it has wrought on both sides, illuminating the complex and sometimes contradictory aspects of this r...

Cet ouvrage retrace avec humour et élégance l'histoire d'une guerre sans fin entre la France et l'Angleterre, un couple historique sans équivalent. Cette relation est unique dans l'histoire moderne, non seulement par sa longévité et sa profondeur culturelle, économique et politique, mais aussi pour ses conséquences mondiales. Un ouvrage passionnant grâce au regard croisé d'un historien anglais (Robert Tombs) et d'une historienne française (Isabelle Tombs).

Au seuil du Brexit, à quoi ressemblera le Brexit ? Les négociateurs britanniques et européens pourraient préférer un mauvais accord à un no deal, mais éviterait-il une sérieuse dégradation des échanges avec l’Union européenne, que ne viendrait compenser aucun nouvel accord commercial ?Le rêve d’un Royaume-Uni voguant sur les mers diplomatiques du monde (Global Britain) en fidèle et nécessaire lieutenant de l’Amérique risque de vite s’user, avec la rétraction des m...

→ Grand entretien avec Gilles Kepel : « Le salafisme est l’arrière-plan culturel du djihadisme »Pour Gilles Kepel, la radicalisation ne précède pas l’islamisation. « Il ne s’agit pas de “Brigades rougesˮ devenues “ vertesˮ ; il ne s’agit pas non plus de simple nihilisme ». La forte prégnance salafiste constitue une rupture culturelle avec la République. Les nouvelles recrues, imprégnée de cette idéologie, se retournent contre la société qui les a fait naître. D’après le politologue,...

What story should Britain tell about itself?In recent years it has become fashionable to tell a certain kind of story about Britain. At its least offensive, this story emphasises the worst aspects of our nation's past while neglecting the best. At its most damaging, it denies or distorts the very fabric of Britain's collective inheritance.Our Islands' Story tells an altogether more honest, complex and hopeful story about Britain. In this engaging a...

A brilliant modern translation by Christine Donougher of Victor Hugo's thrilling masterpiece, with an introduction by Robert Tombs.This is the best translation of the novel available in English, as recommended by David Bellos in The Novel of the Century.Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become...

Whatever happened to Colin Hathaway and Tag Gardiner, the dashing archaeologists famed for their rivalry and their smouldering looks to camera, who went inexplicably missing twenty-five years ago after opening the long-lost Brass Tomb of the Nameless Pharaoh?Who was the Nameless Pharaoh, what was their connection to the end of the Demon Age, and why did they obsessively collect gargoyles?Is it true that Hathaway and Gardiner were spotted recently on the streets of Lyceum, w...