Under Another Sky :Journeys in Roman Britain
Under Another Sky :Journeys in Roman Britain
paperback
Published:
6 March, 2014
Description
**NOW A HIT STAGE PRODUCTION**
Take a journey around the archaeological and cultural remains of Roman Britain with the award-winning author of Greek Myths.
This is a book about the encounter with Roman Britain: about what the idea of 'Roman Britain' has meant to those who came after Britain's 400-year stint as province of Rome - from the medieval mythographer-historian Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edward Elgar and W.H. Auden. What does Roman Britain mean to us now? How were its physical remains rediscovered and made sense of? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse?
Charlotte Higgins has traced these tales by setting out to discover the remains of Roman Britain for herself, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a splendid, though not particularly reliable, VW camper van. Via accounts of some of Britain's most intriguing, and often unjustly overlooked ancient monuments, Under Another Sky invites us to see the British landscape, and British history, in an entirely fresh way: as indelibly marked by how the Romans first imagined, and wrote, these strange and exotic islands, perched on the edge of the known world, into existence.
'Mesmerising... Sophisticated and passionate' Guardian
'[A] lyrical, haunting look at Roman Britain and its echo in our culture' Sunday Times
Prizes
Short-listed for Samuel Johnson Prize 2013 (UK),Short-listed for The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2014 (UK),Short-listed for Thwaites Wainwright Prize 2014 (UK),Short-listed for Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2014 (UK)
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780099552093 |
| ISBN10 | 0099552094 |
| Number Of Pages | 304 |
| Item Weight | 266 g |
| Product Dimensions | 130 x 198 x 22 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | Vintage Publishing |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
Wonderfully written and full of unexpected facts. Higgins brings Roman Britain into the present. -- Richard Sennett
Beautifully crafted… The beauty of this book is not just in the elegant prose and the precision with which she skewers her myths. It is in the sympathy that she shows for the myth-makers, the men and woman who so very much wanted their very own Roman Britain. -- Peter Stothard * The Times *
Mesmerising… Sophisticated and passionate. She personalizes the story in a diaristic, almost poetic tone…her prose reminds me at times of W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn…similarly haunted by a sense of a past slipping away. -- Tim Whitmarsh * Guardian *
Smart and up-to-date, sensitive but hard-headed, impeccably researched but gloriously poetic. The layering of themes, moods and topics is staggering. There's nothing like quite it. -- Tom Holland, author of 'Rubicon' and 'Persian Fire'
Under Another Sky should be on every shelf in the UK. Part travelogue, part handbook and part revisionist history, it is a personal and vivid encounter with landscapes, artefacts and people… Beautifully considered and written. -- Ruth Padel * New Statesman *
A delightful, effortlessly engaging handbook to the half-lost, half-glimpsed world of Roman Britain... Under Another Sky is an utterly original history, lyrically alive to the haunting presence of the past and our strange and familiar ancestors. -- Christopher Hart * Sunday Times *
In her gentle, fine prose, [Higgins] suggests convincingly that Britain was thoroughly changed by its two Roman invasions, and that modern Britain is still built on a Roman skeleton. -- Harry Mount * Daily Telegraph *
Charming, intriguing and not-infrequently elegiac... What is most impressive here, rather than either the erudition of the endeavour, is simply the writing. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman *
Charlotte Higgins looks at what Roman Britain meant to those who, from medieval mythographer Geoffrey of Monmouth to W.H. Auden, subsequently thought about it. -- David Robinson * Scotsman *
Lyrical, haunting look at Roman Britain and its echo in our culture. * Sunday Times *
GoodReads Reviews
Author's Bio
Charlotte Higgins is the acclaimed author of Under Another Sky, which was shortlisted for awards including the Samuel Johnson (now Baillie Gifford) Prize for non-fiction, Red Thread, which was a Radio 4 Book of the Week and won the Arnold Bennett Prize, and Greek Myths, which was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year. She is chief culture writer of the Guardian, a past winner of the Classical Association prize, and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. She lives in London.