The Island Tribes That Became an Empire

“As every English schoolboy knows . . .” Not long ago, this phrase was often used to introduce any well-known fact of British history, be it the Norman invasion of 1066 or the number of Henry VIII’s wives. With all one hears of declining educational standards, the question of what schoolchildren know may have become more problematic. Unless, perhaps, they’ve been watching Simon Schama’s BBC television series, “A History of Britain,” which is also being aired in the U.S. on the History Channel. Of course, there’s also a book version in two volumes: The first, published now, takes us from Neolithic times to the end of the reign of Elizabeth I; the second is due out next April.

The author of “Citizens,” “Landscape and Memory” and “Rembrandt’s Eyes,” Schama is a practitioner of popular history with a personal touch. Serving as our cicerone on a journey through British history, he follows in the footsteps of Kenneth Clark, whose television and book survey of “Civilization” was one of the most exciting and erudite works of its kind. Although Schama is lively and knowledgeable, he falls far short of the standard set by Clark, who was not only a brilliantly insightful, passionately engaged art historian and cultural critic but also an eloquent speaker and gifted prose stylist. Still, anyone looking for a lucid introduction to Britain’s history could do worse than Schama’s brisk survey.

As promised in his preface, Schama steers a sensible course between traditional and revisionist history. In terms of style, however, this preface is distinctly off-putting. Schama’s attempts at injecting a personal note are coy. And his jocular characterization of the effects of rival schools of history is downright embarrassing: “ . . . poor old Clio, History’s muse, subjected either to embalming or eviction and dragged out of the attic like a dotty aunt in eccentric dress, smelling a bit of mothballs, given an occasional airing for a special occasion and then hastily returned to her quarters, where she shares space with mildewy Gladstone bags and antimacassars.” But for those brave enough to press on, the going gets better.

Schama knows how to tell a story, and as we read his history, famous names and events fall neatly into place. A fierce Danish warlord who conquers much of the country turns out to be King Canute (whom most of us remember as the monarch who tried to command the sea to recede). A courageous Scot who stands up to the tyrannical Edward I turns out to be William Wallace, hero of the recent film “Braveheart.” Oddly, however, although Schama begins in prehistoric times, there is almost nothing about Stonehenge or the Druids.

Schama’s breezy humor can be quite refreshing. Of Henry VIII, he notes “you could practically smell the testosterone. Any way and anywhere he could flash his burly energy, he flashed it. . . .” Of the Duke of Norfolk, who was drawn into a plot to kill Elizabeth I not long after he’d been released from prison for involvement in an earlier conspiracy, Schama exclaims: “Did the man never learn anything?” When it comes to portraying terrible events, like Edward I’s massacre of 11,000 Scots, “including countless women and children,” or the 14th century plague that killed nearly half the population, Schama is aptly serious and his presentation is poignantly evocative.

Although some of the feudal power struggles may strike modern readers as alien and barbaric, it is amazing how many of their problems seem relevant still. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was sparked by the imposition of a flat tax that “took no account of wealth” and hence fell hardest upon the poor. And what could sound more eerily modern than this 1st century denunciation of Roman imperialism from a Caledonian rebel: “Robbers of the world, now that the Earth falls into their all-devastating hands, they probe even the sea. . . . [Neither] East nor West has glutted them . . . they make a desolation and they call it peace.”