Rule Britannia! Here is England"s very essence, captured in an anthology of over 1,500 quotes. Eccentricity, snobbery, war, and relationships with the rest of Europe all resound in a "parliament of voices" that ranges from Bede to Larkin, and includes traditional and Asian English. Arranged thematically (questions of identity, a touch of class), the words come from some of England"s finest writers. From the patriotic and laudatory to the dissident and choleric, it"s richly entertaining.