The British Imagination A History of Ideas from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II

<b>From the acclaimed author of <i>The German Genius</i> and <i>The French Mind</i>, a masterful journey through 500 years of British history</b><br> <br> The reign of Queen Elizabeth I ushered in an unprecedented age of exploration and discovery. It saw an island nation, hitherto a cultural backwater, begin for the first time to occupy a realm of innovation and imagination that had for centuries been the domain of China, India and the Arab nations of the Middle East.<br> <br> With England's 'gathering greatness' asserted by a swashbuckling generation of merchant warriors and adventurers, and with the epic voyages of Magellan, Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Francis Drake charting the 'great beyond', it became clear that a fortuitous position on the edges of Europe and the Atlantic offered ever-wider imaginative horizons. Indeed, what came next is described by historian Peter Watson as 'the greatest expansion of ideas and knowledge the world has ever seen.'<br> <br> <i>The British Imagination</i> is a lively and deeply researched history that encompasses the five centuries that formed the contemporary mindset, from Francis Bacon and the first <i>Spectator</i> to Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, James Clerk Maxwell and Maynard Keynes; from the Royal Society to the industrial revolution; and from the first New World landings to the eventual colonization of a quarter of the world by the reign of Elizabeth II. Are we still, Watson asks, even now, living in a British 'metaphysical empire'?<br> <br> Breathtaking in scope, embracing literature, science, art, religion, philosophy and politics, <i>The British Imagination</i> offers a captivating and stimulating insight into the most influential personalities and ideas that have made a small island what it is today.<br> <br> <br> <br>