The Oxford History of Britain tells the story of Britain and its people over two thousand years, from the coming of the Roman legions to the present day. Encompassing political, social, economic, and cultural developments throughout the British Isles, the dramatic narrative is taken up in turn by ten leading historians who offer the fruits of the best modern scholarship to the general reader in an authoritative form. A vivid, sometimes surprising picture emerges of a continuous turmoil of change in every period, and the wider social context of political and economic tension is made clear. But consensus, no less than conflict, is a part of the story: in focusing on elements of continuity down the centuries, the authors bring out that special awareness of identity which has been such a distinctive feature of British society. By relating both these factors in the British experience, and by exploring the many ways in which Britain has shaped and been shaped by contact with Europe and the wider world, this landmark work brings the reader face to face with the past, and the foundations of modern British society. The new edition brings the story into the twenty-first century, covering the changes to British society and culture during the Blair years and the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

For two hundred years historians have viewed England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 as an un-revolutionary revolution—bloodless, consensual, aristocratic, and above all, sensible. In this brilliant new interpretation Steve Pincus refutes this traditional view. By expanding the interpretive lens to include a broader geographical and chronological frame, Pincus demonstrates that England’s revolution was a European event, that it took place over a number of years, not months, and that it had repercussions in India, North America, the West Indies, and throughout continental Europe. His rich historical narrative, based on masses of new archival research, traces the transformation of English foreign policy, religious culture, and political economy that, he argues, was the intended consequence of the revolutionaries of 1688–1689. James II developed a modernization program that emphasized centralized control, repression of dissidents, and territorial empire. The revolutionaries, by contrast, took advantage of the new economic possibilities to create a bureaucratic but participatory state. The postrevolutionary English state emphasized its ideological break with the past and envisioned itself as continuing to evolve. All of this, argues Pincus, makes the Glorious Revolution—not the French Revolution—the first truly modern revolution. This wide-ranging book reenvisions the nature of the Glorious Revolution and of revolutions in general, the causes and consequences of commercialization, the nature of liberalism, and ultimately the origins and contours of modernity itself.

本书把16—18世纪的英国贵族作为一个整体进行考察，从构成与特征、数量与流动、社会特征、社会地位与作用四个方面入手，展示了英国贵族在社会整体结构变迁中的地位与命运，揭示了社会转型与贵族阶层演变的互动关系。

本书是现代英国著名的资产阶级经济学家、史学家克拉潘的一部主要著作，共三卷。上卷叙述1820—1850年、即作者所谓“铁路时代前夕”和“早期铁路时代”的英国经济史；中卷叙述1850—1886年、即作者所谓“自由贸易和钢”时期的英国经济史；下卷叙述1887—1914年、即作者所谓“机器和国家的竞争”时期的英国经济史。本书是英国经济史著作中篇幅较大，史实较详细、资料较丰富的一种，对我们了解英国经济发展过程有很大的参考价值。

《英国发展的历史轨迹》是从政治、经济、法律、思想文化和社会福利等角度，对英国现代社会进行全方位研究的学术著作。英国原本地处欧洲一隅，并不发达，在现代以前也从来不处在欧洲文明的中心区域。然而，英国却比更多条件优越的国家率先完成了现代化的任务，成为世界上第一个工业民族。尽管二战后英国已经不再是“日不落帝国”，但其政治文化遗产的影响依然不容忽视。 英国能够从一个偏远的岛国成为世界一流强国，主要原因在于它为人类社会提供了两大创新产品：即现代议会制度及其政治机器的有效运作方式与工业革命。而能够提供这些创新的土壤，则是英国在其发展过程中始终沿着法治化、民主化与社会保障制度化轨迹前行的保证。 要保证这种发展轨迹不被扭曲，还需要一些十分重要的制度和思想观念的支撑与配合。这样的一些内容，既是“软”的，又是“硬”的。说它软，是因为这些东西似乎是看不见，摸不着的，然而却如同空气一样无处不在；说它硬，则是这些似乎像空气一样的东西，如果你违反了它的标准，你就会寸步难行。这些东西与“三化”一起，构成了一种我们称之为“英国式”的传统，并且在这种传统的左右下，留下了英国发展的历史轨迹。因此，现代英国是一个历史进步的长期的产物，它在现代思想观念、地方自治、经济发展、法治、民族国家构建和社会保障等方面都是按照上述的轨迹逐步运作、逐步完善的。这种发展的轨迹，从一种大历史的视野来考察，有很多发人深思之处。