This is a single-volume history of England by the General Editor of the fifteen volume Oxford History of England. It is not a mere summary or abstracts of English history. It blocks out events of primary importance from Roman times to the Second World War, linking them together to show how the English people came to form a social and political community, and how this community has changed in the course of time. In order to illustrate this the book touches on other national communities, neighbouring and distant (including the Welsh, Scots and Irish), and on the many groups from their own families and villages or towns to international churches and world-wide associations, to which English men and women have belonged. Every English reader is already acquainted with many facts and ideas about English history. If these are disconnected or conflicting, this survey should help to mould them into a coherent whole.