Britain wasn't conquered in a day.

When Caesar's legions embarked for Britain in 55 BC, they thought they were sailing off the edge of the world. In a sense they were right. Through five long centuries of peace and war, Britannia kept its place among the empire's wildest frontiers - a rain-swept, rebel-haunted island that the Romans, though always conquering, could never truly say they had conquered.

Combining the latest findings of archaeology with a sensitive reading of the ancient sources, Ferdinand Addis paints a vivid portrait of Britain's beginnings, from Celtic prehistory to the final retreat of the legions and its bloody and mysterious aftermath.

With astonishing narrative flair, Addis moves between sweeping history and human-scale drama, from imperial grand strategy to stolen bathrobes and birthday parties on Hadrian's Wall. What emerges is a richly complex story that defies familiar clichés - a story of domination and resistance, of cultures colliding and entwining, and the slow transformation of the landscapes and peoples of Roman Britain.