This book is a masterly introduction for everyone to the growth and development of the country's arts - literature, music, poetry, painting, architecture, theatre, and all the related subjects which over the centuries have given British intellectual and culture life its unique character and vitality. Presented to the reader as a single unfolding narrative running from the Celts to the present day, the arts are set within a vivid panorama of the social, economic, political and ideological forces which shaped them...