From the prize-winning author comes a transformative story of Tudor and Stuart England that was far more global than the traditional story suggests — told not through its kings and queens, but through the merchants, migrants, sailors and spies whose journeys reshaped the nation.

‘A fresh, vibrant perspective on the Tudor and Stuart age' Tracy Borman
'This Little World is the real thing: an urgent, compelling and renewing history' Toby Green

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries forged a powerful image of England – Shakespeare’s ‘scepter’d isle’, proud and apart, defined by royal spectacle and myth. But beneath this familiar narrative of ruffs and gowns, kings and queens, lies a more complex and connected reality.

England at this time was far from insular. Travelling in and out of the country were Venetian glassmakers with English wives, African innkeepers and Native American envoys. There were people like the Flemish artist Levina Teerlinc, probably the only painter to be employed by four English monarchs. There was William Adams, a Kentish navigator who became Japan's first English samurai. And there was Elizabeth Key, daughter of an enslaved mother in the colony in Virginia, who battled in the courts for herself and her son.

Drawing on extensive archival research, attentive to the textures of daily life, yet alive to the sweep of history, This Little World offers a startlingly new, globally resonant vision of England’s past and what it meant to be English. It is a story of a nation in the making – on the cusp of empire – told through the traces of those often written out of it. In reframing England’s story within a wider world, it challenges us to rethink some of our most fundamental ideas: about nationhood, about identity, and above all, about belonging.

A beautifully constructed and thought-provoking book that provides a fresh, vibrant perspective on the Tudor and Stuart age. As well as telling the wider story of immigration and exploration, of the forging of national identity, it brings to light an exquisitely drawn cast of characters – artists, merchants, musicians and more – whose lives intersected with the ‘scepter’d isle’ of Shakespeare -- TRACY BORMAN, author of The Stolen Crown
This Little World is the real thing: an urgent, compelling, and renewing history of Tudor and Stuart Britain which demands to be read. It is beautifully written and characterised by such empathy and humanity that everyone will enjoy it -- TOBY GREEN, author of The Heretic of Cacheu
This Little World is a compelling new survey of one of the most momentous periods in British history. She sets the reign of the Tudors and Stuarts in a truly global context, bringing a startlingly fresh perspective on the what at first glance seems a well-trodden path of historical study, with a combination of meticulous scholarship and a necessary revaluation of familiar sources, we are given a new way of understanding a critical period in history of these islands -- RICHARD OVENDEN, author of Burning the Books
A page-turning history of how a nation was defined by the people it welcomed or persecuted. Tudor and Stuart England through the eyes of incomers and exiles – and beautifully written -- PHILIPPA GREGORY, author of Normal Women

Nandini Das is professor of Early Modern English Literature and Culture and Fellow of Exeter College at Oxford University. Her most recent book, Courting India: England, Mughal India, and the Origins of Empire, was longlisted for the Cundill Prize, shortlisted for the Duff Cooper and Wolfson History Prizes, and won the British Academy Book Prize. It was also a Spectator, Prospect and History Today Book of the Year. A BBC New Generation Thinker, she regularly contributes to and presents television and radio programmes, including Tales of Tudor Travel on BBC Four. In 2025, she was awarded an OBE for services to Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities and to Public Engagement.