Landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock. It is... difficult to think of a single natural system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. The cultural habits of humanity have always made room for the sacredness of nature.

Landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock. It is... difficult to think of a single natural system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. The cultural habits of humanity have always made room for the sacredness of nature.

There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.

I first read War And Peace about 100 years after Tolstoy wrote it.

Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. They beat raggedly on into the future.

I actually think that history has fed off the restlessness of cyber space, of kind of the frantic, segmented nature of the way we lead our lives. People want to be connected.

In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.