Colin Brown is the acclaimed author of Operation Big: The Race to Stop Hitler’s A-Bomb, ‘The Scum of the Earth’: What Happened to the Real British Heroes of Waterloo? and Whitehall: The Street That Shaped a Nation. Formerly political editor of the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent on Sunday, he covered breaking news in Downing Street and Westminster for over thirty years. He lives in London.

‘This is as much a travel book as history. Brown goes to significant sites… It’s in evoking such a strong sense of place that the book succeeds in conveying a sense of history.’

• 1215: The Magna Carta. 1415: Henry V. 1588: Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 1688: The Bill of Rights. 1815: Waterloo. 1833: Abolition of the slave trade. 1928: Women's suffrage. 1940: Dunkirk and Churchill's last stand. 1945: Creation of the welfare state. 1982: Falklands War.

Colin Brown is the acclaimed author of Operation Big: The Race to Stop Hitler’s A-Bomb, ‘The Scum of the Earth’: What Happened to the Real British Heroes of Waterloo? and Whitehall: The Street That Shaped a Nation. Formerly political editor of the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent on Sunday, he covered breaking news in Downing Street and Westminster for over thirty years. He lives in London.

‘This is as much a travel book as history. Brown goes to significant sites… It’s in evoking such a strong sense of place that the book succeeds in conveying a sense of history.’

• 1215: The Magna Carta. 1415: Henry V. 1588: Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 1688: The Bill of Rights. 1815: Waterloo. 1833: Abolition of the slave trade. 1928: Women's suffrage. 1940: Dunkirk and Churchill's last stand. 1945: Creation of the welfare state. 1982: Falklands War.

Colin Brown is the acclaimed author of Operation Big: The Race to Stop Hitler’s A-Bomb, ‘The Scum of the Earth’: What Happened to the Real British Heroes of Waterloo? and Whitehall: The Street That Shaped a Nation. Formerly political editor of the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent on Sunday, he covered breaking news in Downing Street and Westminster for over thirty years. He lives in London.

‘This is as much a travel book as history. Brown goes to significant sites… It’s in evoking such a strong sense of place that the book succeeds in conveying a sense of history.’

• 1215: The Magna Carta. 1415: Henry V. 1588: Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 1688: The Bill of Rights. 1815: Waterloo. 1833: Abolition of the slave trade. 1928: Women's suffrage. 1940: Dunkirk and Churchill's last stand. 1945: Creation of the welfare state. 1982: Falklands War.