Northerners: The bestselling history of the North of England

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Going from the Ice Age to the present day in about 400 pages means you cannot cover anything in depth. It reads as a collection of independent, semi-linked chapters rather than a free-flowing, interconnected whole.

The way the book is structured threw me off at times too because it jumps around in time an awful lot due to tangents but, to be honest, that is a minor qualm. Thankfully the footnotes and the select bibliography have given me somewhere to go next in my exploration of Northern history. Like Northerners, it will combine historical narrative with social and cultural themes and colourful portraits of personalities, famous or not, involved in the story.The book charts how the north-south divide has ebbed and flowed and explores the very real divisions between northerners, such as the rivalry between Lancashire and Yorkshire. As histories go, this is very complete, from the first Northerners we known about right up to the present day.

There is also a little bit too much polishing over historical events which would make for a more interesting book. Both books will draw on the Stretford-born author’s more than four decades as a journalist specialising largely in the archipelago’s regions and nations. War of the roses only included 13 weeks of fighting over 32 years and was between the family's of tudor and Lancaster. I especially found the chapters on slavery/ cotton manufacturing and the women's movement really interesting as I had not been aware that the North part of England had played such an influential part, first in terms of commerce and then later in abolishing slavery both here and in America.I appreciate having to condense thousands of years of history into around 330 or so pages represents something of a challenge, yet at times the more read more like something of a curated list of points of interest in Northern history, than a compelling narrative about the North. Northerners, which has been a Times number three bestseller in hardback non-fiction, is also published by HarperNorth. He is a journalist so knows how to tell a story, and the stories he tells here are never less than gripping.

I guess I would recommend this if you want somewhere to start with Northern History but I think books about specific regions and/or time periods would probably be better. The only thing I wish could have been added would have been a chapter on the LGBT history of the North. But overall, I would recommend reading this if you want to understand what makes the North special and interesting and why people like me love living here. 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.

But with the Industrial Revolution, the North came into its own, and more recent days are examined in greater detail (possibly because we have greater detail) - industry, arts, sciences, until of the contributions of us folk up here simply can'd denied or dismissed. Sometimes, there were lists of statistics or dates, or comparative data with the South with very little analysis to complement or comment on the data. And despite the negativity with which the book ends, the North is not doomed to repeat a cycle of failing to evaluate and learn from our history. 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. Neanderthals and Vikings, Central European Jews, Afro-Caribbeans and South Asians, have all played their part in the making and remaking of the north.