When was the first motorway opened? What did the Levellers believe in? What was the book of sports? Where did the Rebecca riots take place? What prompted the Cat and Mouse Act? How long did the Hundred Years War last? When was the treaty of Worms for?

Drawing on from the highly acclaimed Oxford Companion to British History, published in 1997, The Dictionary of British History published in the very popular OPR series first in 2001 and now reissued for 2003 is a handy and invaluable reference work essential for anyone with an interest in British history and in need for a compact reference source covering 2,000 years of people, events, and places, and political, economic, local, domestic, military, and social change. In more
than 3,600 entries, over 100 specialist contributors describe the people and events that have shaped and defined domestic, political, social, and cultural life in Britain over the past two millennia.

The A-Z text is completely up to date with new entries on Iain Duncan Smith, terrorism, and Prince William. Existing entries on Tony Blair, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Plaid Cymru, SNP, Sinn Fein, Acts of Uniformity, and the United Nations have been updated.

The text covers a wide breadth of subject matter -

people: philosophers (John Locke, Herbert Spencer), writers (Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Chaucer), composers (Elgar), politicians (Dilke, Disraeli) actors (Charlie Chaplin), royalty (Joan of Kent, house of Tudor).

events: disasters (fire of London, Titanic), diseases (cholera).

domestic history: legal issues (jury system), technical terms, newspapers and periodicals (The Times), sport (squash) and leisure (chess), scholarship and education (public schools).

local history: counties (Derbyshire, Warwickshire), towns (Chester, Ipswich), cities (London).

military history: battles (Battle of Britain, battle of Mynydd Carn, battle of Dollor), treaties (treaties of Locarno, treaty of Troyes), conflicts and wars (War of Spanish succession, War of 1812).

political history: reform (Speenhamland), civil unrest (Tolpuddle martyrs, Peterloo masacre), acts of parliament (Chimney Sweeps Act, Intolerable Acts, Riot Act), governmental issues.

economic and social history: important inventions and innovators (Richard Trevithick), movements for change (chartism, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), reform, changes in the economic climate (industrial revolution).

John Cannon