The Oxford companion to British history

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Derek Robinson

Robinson's thesis is that the RAF didn't save Britain from invasion by defeating the Luftwaffe. The battle was at best a draw, and it was the advancing season and Hitler's eyes turning toward Russia that did the job. Robinson also seriously questions whether the Luftwaffe could ever have suppressed the Royal Navy sufficiently to prevent it from making effective night attacks on any invasion fleet and leaving the Germans to totter ashore in no fit state to deal with even a battered British army. Some may object that he overlooks the effect of German air superiority on the Battle of the Atlantic in British waters, yet he points out that Hitler and Goring were totally blind in the area of naval strategy and might not have been able to do anything with such superiority even had they gained it. A solid, well-informed, gentlemanly piece of myth busting and a useful, provocative addition to Battle of Britain literature by the author of one of the outstanding novels on the subject, Piece of Cake (1984).

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Peter Salway

"Britain was within the orbit of Graeco-Roman civilization for at least half a millennium, and for over 350 years part of the political union created by the Roman Empire that encompassed most of Europe and all the countries of the Mediterranean." "Peter Salway's Very Short Introduction to Roman Britain weaves together the results of archaeological investigation and historical scholarship in a rounded and highly readable concise account. He charts the history of Britain from the first invasion under Julius Caesar to the final collapse of the Romano-British way of life in the 5th century A.D."--Jacket.

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M.H. Hoeflich

Seeking to fill a gap in our knowledge of the legal history of the nineteenth century, this volume studies the influence of Roman and civil law upon the development of common law jurisdictions in the United States and in Great Britain. Hoeflich examines the writings of a variety of prominent Anglo-American legal theorists to show how Roman and civil law helped common law thinkers develop their own theories. Intellectual leaders in law in the United States and Great Britain used Roman and civil law in different ways at different times. The views of these lawyers were greatly respected even by non-lawyers, and most of them wrote to influence a wider public. By filling in the gaps in the history of jurisprudence, this volume also provides greater understanding of the development of Anglo-American culture and society.

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Frank Welsh

"In The Four Nations, Frank Welsh offers a lively narrative history of the four component parts of the British Isles - England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Moving from the Roman period, which first defined many of the current internal boundaries, through the present day, Welsh describes the history of each nation, their interactions, and the impacts of crises ranging from the Norman Invasion to the Protestant Reformation to the two world wars of the twentieth century. Along the way, Welsh questions many cherished illusions and poses some awkward questions: to what extent were Scotland, Ireland, and Wales victims of predatory English aggression? How serious is the frequently invoked specter of national fragmentation?"--Jacket.