Where does the idea of England and Englishness come from? Are there particular moments in the Dark and Middle Ages when we can see it develop? In a series of pieces on Arthur, Alfred, Robin Hood and Athelstan, Michael Wood examines these and other questions. He also writes on a number of places that illuminate the issues: Tinsley Wood near Sheffield, scene of an Anglo-Saxon battle; a farmhouse on Dartmoor, continuously inhabited since Domesday; the rebellious village of Peatling Magna in Leicestershire. This fascinating book offers a potent and revealing account of what is Englishness.