THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Geography comes before history. Islands cannot have the
same history as continental plains. The United Kingdom is a European country but not the same
kind of European country as Germany Poland or Hungary. For most of the 150 centuries during
which Britain has been inhabited it has been on the edge culturally and literally of mainland
Europe. In this succinct book Tombs shows that the decision to leave the EU is historically
explicable - though not made historically inevitable - by Britain's very different historical
experience especially in the twentieth century and because of our more extensive and deeper
ties outside Europe. He challenges the orthodox view that Brexit was due solely to British or
English exceptionalism: in choosing to leave the EU the British he argues were in many ways
voting as typical Europeans.
