**From the Wolfson Prize-winning author of *God's Architect: Pugin and
the Building of Romantic Britain
Between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the opening of the Great
Exhibition in 1851, history changed. The grand narratives of the
Enlightenment, concerned with kings and statesmen, gave way to a new
interest in the lives of ordinary people. Oral history, costume history,
the history of food and furniture, of Gothic architecture, theatre and
much else were explored as never before. Antiquarianism, the study of
the material remains of the past, was not new, but now hundreds of men -
and some women - became antiquaries and set about rediscovering their
national history, in Britain, France and Germany.
The Romantic age valued facts, but it also valued imagination and it
brought both to the study of history. Among its achievements were the
preservation of the Bayeux Tapestry, the analysis and dating of Gothic
architecture, and the first publication of Beowulf. It dispelled old
myths, and gave us new ones: Shakespeare's birthplace, clan tartans and
the arrow in Harold's eye are among their legacies. From scholars to
imposters the dozen or so antiquaries at the heart of this book show us
history in the making.
