Maybe there's a bit of regional bias but personally I thought The Northumbrians: North-East England and it's People by Dan Jackson was better.

Groom sets out to create a proper history of the north of England and the people that identify as northerners.Decent overview of the region but at times it just feels like lists of names of individuals (kings, entertainers, inventors etc) and stories with a lack of overarching theme/connections. To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password.

However, I would have liked to have seen a chapter on Queer figures from the North to give this book its full potential. This economic and cultural divide has existed throughout history with the industrial revolution adding to the image of sprawling townscapes billowing with smoke in contrast to the richer farmland of the south and the burgeoning of the London metropolis. He gets to leap across centuries and pull together different parts of northern history which a narrower focus wouldn't allow. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.For an overview it's brilliantly done and you can always delve more into the bits you found most interesting. To have a book that condenses such a lengthy and tumultuous period of history into one volume will be welcomed by readers interested in the saga of this region. This is a huge book, in which the author slips seamlessly and triumphantly from one subject to another.

He is also a former editor of Scotland on Sunday, which he launched as deputy editor and which won many awards. St Oswald and Bede shaped the spiritual and cultural landscapes of Britain and Europe, and the world was revolutionised by the inventions of Richard Arkwright and the Stephensons. Deciding where the north starts in England is always a good question and the author does give the reader choices.But at other times, important figures from history are simply listed, with what made them peculiarly Northern often not explored. It also embraces the scenery of the north, and Groom's accounts of Liverpool, the Pennines, Northumbria and Manchester are all very evocative. Brian Groom is a journalist and one of the foremost experts on British regional and national affairs. Worked for almost three decades at the Financial Times, where he did many of the top writing and editing jobs, including comment and analysis editor and political editor. In a sweeping narrative that takes us from the earliest times to the present day, the book shows that the people of the north have shaped Britain and the world in unexpected ways.

As I said, this is not an analytical account, and some of the thornier issues of northern identity are side stepped. Definitely recommend reading it rather than listening to the audiobook version because personally, I found it felt like listening to a never ending dull lecture which got a bit repetitive to be honest. There were also little asides that say something about what it is to be Northern that didn't align with my own perceptions of the North and Northern history.It reads as a collection of independent, semi-linked chapters rather than a free-flowing, interconnected whole. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. As histories go, this is very complete, from the first Northerners we known about right up to the present day.