In the last year of the twentieth century the

celebrated foreign correspondent Fergal Keane

set out for the BBC on a journey through

Britain. After years covering the world s conflict

zones, Keane - the child of Irish parents living

temporarily in London - turned his attention

to the country in which he was born but where,

until recently, he had never lived. From

Glasgow to Leeds, London, Cornwall, Wales

and to the very fringes of the United Kingdom

in County Tyrone, he discovered a world of

poverty, exclusion and alienation.

At times angry and always passionate, this is

Fergal Keane at his very best. It is a work of

compelling story-telling, as the author hears

the small voices lost in the bigger picture: listen

to Fiona, the young heroin addict who sold her

body and stole to support her habit; meet the

Protestants and Catholics living side by side on

this country s westernmost border; hear the

story of the tenant farmers in the Welsh hills

whose way of life is vanishing. And consider

that in August 1999 a Scottish shipyard with

1,200 workers was sold for two and a quarter

million pounds- the price of a large house in

Islington, spiritual home of New Labour.

Though this is an unflinching and sometimes

shocking book, it is also curiously uplifting, as

Keane reports on the courage and lack of self-

pity of those he encountered. Applying the

compassion and insight for which his foreign

reporting is widely admired, Fergal Keane has

written a compelling account of the nation

today as well as a provocative challenge to

those who promised a New Britain for the

New Millennium.