A History Of Britain - Volume 3 by Simon Schama (BBC Worldwide, £25)

OCCUPYING the middle ground between the lofty towers of academia and dumbed-down populist histories, Simon Schama completes his marathon series in resounding fashion.

With this, his third and final volume, Schama has at last finished his 2,000-year journey through the story of these islands.

And it is a milestone of which he can justifiably be proud.

As in the previous two volumes, this is a vast compelling epic, with lively storytelling and larger-than-life heroes such as Nelson and Churchill. However, this is not just about legends - Schama also recalls unsung heroines hitherto ignored by chroniclers.

Alongside the grand ideas, he also exposes the grand illusions of an Empire in which millions toiled and died in the name of an imperial dream.

He uses his trademark inimitable style to good effect. For this is a warts-and-all account which records with an objectivity that is rare in historians - try as you may, it is difficult to detect the grinding of any axes.

Pictorially, the book effortlessly measures up to the standard of writing. There are indeed some evocative photographs - the picture of Churchill in his Hussars uniform reverberates with echoes of the trappings and symbols from a lost age.

Yet it is the image of the Battle of Britain fighter pilots scrambling to their machines that truly captures the spirit of the British in the face of adversity.

Young men racing across a grass airstrip to an uncertain fate speaks volumes for the generation without whom a history such as this could never have seen the light of day.

John Phillpott