SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEARA dazzlingly brilliant book Hannah DawsonFascinating often exhilarating ... Albinia is an intrepid imaginative guide TLSThe Britannias tells the story of Britains islands and how they are woven into its collective cultural psyche.From Neolithic Orkney to modernday Thanet Alice Albinia explores the furthest reaches of Britains island topography once known wrote Pliny by the collective term Britanniae. Sailing over borders between languages and genres trespassing through the past to understand the present this book knocks the centre out to foreground neglected epics and subversive voices.The ancient mythology of islands ruled by women winds through the literature of the British Isles from Roman colonialera reports to early Irish poetry Renaissance drama to Restoration utopias transcending and subverting the most malefixated of ages. The Britannias looks far back into the past for direction and solace while searching for new meaning about womens status in the body politic. Boldly upturning established truths about Britain it pays homage to the islands beauty independence and their suppressed or forgotten histories.