David W. Moore (1951–)

For an island nation, most histories of Britain focus on one or two--or perhaps a handful--of the thousands of islands that make up the nation. Moore's book remedies that gap, and does it in far-ranging way that's sometimes fascinating, sometimes pedestrian, and sometimes so compelling that I was left with the urge to up stakes and head to the islands myself.

Short but very detailed capsule histories of Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, Anglesey, Scilly, the Isle of Wight, and the Channel Islands, each of which are surprisingly different, with much variation in influence and trajectory. The maps are pretty crap, but the descriptions still made me want to jump on a plane (or a ferry boat) and go see these places.

Being of Celtic stock and from one of the 6,289 offshore ‘islands of the archipelagos’, but not from one visited or even indexed by David Moore, I could readily accept his statements on the differences of attitude if not cultures of ‘islanders’ to those peoples on the mainland of Great Britain, but I argue with his claim that history readers might be forgiven for forgetting these islands form part of the nation – it is called the British Isles after all!

Firstly, the physical book show more itself, handsomely published by the appropriately named McFarland, a large yet handy volume, regretfully containing in this version just a handful of sketched maps. As I enjoyed the book I longed for photographs, even at one stage - the descriptions of Skara Brae - resorting to Google, so as to actually “see” what I had learned by my reading. I was able to rely on personal memories for several of the islands (Jersey, Guernsey, Orkney, Wright and Mann) in support of the mind-pictures of the prose, but would have liked some pictures, or indeed, more descriptions of these beautiful isles from Professor Moore.

Of Skara Brae itself the author firmly establishes its antiquity by creating a mind-picture of a path descending to the foundations past a series of ‘signposts’ recording such historical events as the moon landing, various inventions, the crusades, the Roman Empire, the building of the pyramids until – oldest of all - the founding of Skara Brae itself. Dated to 3100 BCE this ‘village’ had built in closet organizers, sleeping couches and even rudimentary plumbing and drainage – long before the Romans settled. An island occupation from over 5000 years ago that astounds us still.

This is a book for history buffs, written by a history professor, so is not for casual skimming, and it requires concentration – almost studying – but the rewards justify one’s attention. The work is a deep historical research leading to thrilling and revealing accounts. Despite my visiting many times and often reading about the Channel Isles – those geographical, incongruous anomalies near Brittany – I had little idea of the waves of anthropological storms that had washed around them. Anglesey – again oft visited and, I thought before reading this work, well know - proved to have exciting stories of Roman occupation, Vikings, Druids and Welsh Kings, It was, Moore reveals, called Mổn mam Cymru, the Mother of Wales as long ago as the time of Gruffydd in 1081.

This is a book that can be strongly recommended to any ‘history-buff’ or even more serious studiers of the history of the British Isles, or of man and Western civilization. show less

The Other British Isles is a brisk run through of the history of some of the larger islands and island groups of Britain. Covering how they respectively came to be (usually rising seas making hill tops into islands), human habitation and how the wider world came into contact and interacted with them.

Written in the early 21st Century, at least some of the information in each chapter must be out of date and it would be interesting to see the directions each isles has taken since then. The show more Other British Isles has also helped increase my trivia knowledge; there are apparently more New Zealanders of Shetland ancestry than there are Shetland Islanders is but one good example of this. show less