Before the 16th century Britain was a small, out-of-the-way backwater, lagging far behind other global powers in terms of power and innovation. This all changed when Queen Elizabeth I was crowned. During her reign, creative and intellectual life flourished as never before, and Britain became one of the leading nations of ‘the West’. It has remained a major power ever since.

What happened in the last five hundred years to bring about this change, and to maintain it? And what can it tell us about the unique nature of British identity and exceptionalism today?

The British Imagination is a masterful journey through 500 years of history, from Shakespeare to Woolf, the Royal Society to the industrial revolution, and from the first New World colonies to the empire that by the 1920s had colonised a quarter of the world. The key tenets of British history, Peter Watson argues, are religion, empirical science, commerce and empire.

Breathtaking in scope, covering everything from astronomy to geology, philosophy to literature, The British Imagination is a spellbinding tour of the most influential ideas – and the extraordinary people – who made Britain what it is today.