The English (The Peoples of Europe)

A survey of the English experience through a thousand years and more, this book concentrates on the lasting characteristics of a people who early on discovered the fact of a national identity. The outstanding hallmarks of this experience were the existence of a strong central authority (in the monarchy), the provision of a system of law, and with these two the possibility of preserving individual rights and liberties in the face of a long sequence of historical vicissitudes.