Bloody Foreigners : the story of immigration to Britain

"The story of the way Britain has been settled and influenced by foreign people and ideas is as old as the land itself. In the first book to treat the subject as a continuous narrative, Robert Winder tells of the remarkable migrations that have founded and defined a nation. It is a moving and inspiring history, which begins with hunter-gatherers following the melting ice and moves through a thousand years of invasions from 55BC to the Battle of Hastings. Winder describes how the Jewish community, originally sponsored by William the Conqueror, was persecuted and expelled by Edward I; how a Dutch elite crossed the Channel with William II, among them clockmakers, goldsmiths and artists; and the daring escape of the Huguenots, who fled religious persecution on the continent and helped lay the foundations of an industrial and commercial revolution. Victorian Britian hummed with human traffic from all over Europe, from scientists to sailors, dissidents to engineers. Robert Winder chronicles the impact of the Irish and the other great influxes of that century: from Italy, Germany, Jewish Russia and Poland. As the curtain falls on the British Empire, he follows the tumultuous arrival of the hopeful travellers from India, Africa, China and the Caribbean."--Provided by the publisher.