The author and classics scholar shares “a delightful, deeply informed recounting of her journeys across Britain in search of its ancient Roman past” (Kirkus, starred review).
What does Roman Britain mean to us now? How were its physical remains rediscovered and made sense of? How has it been reimagined, in story and song and verse? Sometimes on foot, sometimes in a magnificent, if not entirely reliable, VW camper van, Charlotte Higgins sets out to explore the ancient monuments of Roman Britain. She explores the land that was once Rome’s northernmost territory and how it has changed since the years after the empire fell.
Under Another Sky invites readers to see the British landscape, and British history, in an entirely fresh way: as indelibly marked by how the Romans first imagined and wrote, these strange and exotic islands, perched on the edge of the known world, into existence.
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize
Charlotte Higgins is the author of Greek Myths: A New Retelling. Her previous books include the acclaimed Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, which was shortlisted for UK awards including the Samuel Johnson (now Baillie Gifford) prize for non-fiction, and Red Thread: On Mazes and Labyrinths, which was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and won the Arnold Bennett prize 2019. She is chief culture writer of the Guardian, a past winner of the Classical Association prize, and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. She lives in London.