These Divided Isles tells the story from both sides of the Irish Sea. Cutting through the layers of grievance and prejudice it explores the emotional intimacy and enmity of a relationship shaped by close familial ties and clashing national identities. It’s a story written by big political leaders – David Lloyd George, Michael Collins, Winston Churchill and Eamon de Valera – and the millions of Irish emigrants who crossed from Ireland to Britain to begin new lives.

Today demography, Brexit and political logic have brought the possibility of Irish unity into view. Grounded in decades of personal contact and interviews with key policymakers across Britain and Europe, Stephens maps this complex relationship and asks how Ireland might deploy its history to inform its future rather than hold it in place.

A magisterial and profoundly perceptive survey of Britain’s post-war role on the global stage, from Suez to Brexit.

‘The fullest long-run political and diplomatic narrative yet of Britain’s fateful, tragi-comic road to Brexit.’
DAVID KYNASTON

‘An instant classic . . . Stephens is a master of historical codebreaking.’
PETER HENNESSEY

Award-winning Financial Times journalist Philip Stephens paints a fascinating portrait of sixty years – from Suez to Brexit – as Britain struggles to reconcile its waning power with its past glory. Drawing on decades of personal contact and interviews with senior politicians and diplomats in Britain, the United States and across the capitals of Europe, Britain Alone is a magisterial and deeply perceptive history of our nation and how we arrived at the state we are in.

‘Commanding . . . Rarely if ever, in the history of the British state since 1707, has one half of Britain’s ruling elite committed an act of policy viewed with such absolute contempt by the other half; and rarely has that contempt been expressed with such elegance, such fluency, and such a devastating wealth of supporting detail, as in this mighty survey.’ SCOTSMAN

‘Profoundly knowledgeable.’ CHRIS PATTEN
‘Compelling.’ LAWRENCE FREEDMAN
‘A fascinating history.’ IRISH TIMES
‘A magnificent, exhilarating book’ PROSPECT

‘Philip Stephens has produced that rare thing – an instant classic. Britain Alone is the codebook we need to unravel the six and a half decades between Suez and Brexit, and Stephens is a master of historical codebreaking.’
PETER HENNESSY

How might we celebrate Britain’s undoubted strengths while accepting that we have slipped from the top table? How can we act as a great nation while no longer pretending to be a great power? How might we be European and global?

In 1962 the American statesman Dean Acheson famously charged that Britain had lost an empire and failed to find a new role. Nearly sixty years later the rebuke rings true again. Britain’s postwar search for its place in the world has vexed prime ministers and government since the nation’s great victory in 1945: the cost of winning the war was giving up the empire.

After the humiliation of Anthony Eden’s Suez expedition, Britain seemed for a time to have found an answer. Clinging to its self-image as a great island nation, it would serve as America’s best friend while acknowledging its geography by signing up to membership of the European Union. Never a comfortable balancing act, for forty years it appeared to work. In 2016 David Cameron called the Brexit referendum and blew it up.

Award-winning journalist Philip Stephens paints a fascinating portrait of a nation struggling to reconcile its waning power with past glory. Drawing on decades of personal contact and interviews with senior politicians and diplomats in Britain, the United States and across the capitals of Europe, Britain Alone is a vivid account of a proud nation struggling to admit it is no longer a great power. It is an indispensable guide to how we arrived at the state we are in.

‘Compelling, informative and readable . . . offers much-needed substance.’
FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Fascinating.’
IRISH TIMES

‘Commanding.’
SCOTSMAN

‘A magnificent, exhilarating book, laying bare the contradictions, misunderstandings and delusions that led Britain first to build a bridge across the Channel and then bulldoze it . . . The book is much more than Brexit.’
PROSPECT