The Island Race

Cassell, London, 1964

Note - An abridgement of Churchill's 4 volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Many passages from these volumes have been omitted, and sequence and proportion demanded some slight rearrangement of others. Apart, however, from some linking words and punctuation which are insignificant in number, and some necessary reparagraphing, this abridgement is entirely in Sir Winston's own fine words...

Our story centres on an island, not widely sundered from the Continent, and so tilted that its mountains lie all to the west and north, while south and east is a gently undulating landscape of wooded valleys, open downs and slow rivers. It is very accessible to the invader, whether he comes in peace or war, as pirate or merchant, conqueror or missionary. Those who dwell there are not insensitive to any shift of power, any change of faith, or even fashion, on the mainland, but they give to every practice, every doctrine that comes to it from abroad, its own peculiar turn and imprint...