United States
£ GBP
Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2024.
The right have hijacked Englishness. Can it be reclaimed? With the UK more divided than ever, England has re-emerged as a potent force in our culture and politics. But today the dominant story told about our country serves solely the interests of the right. The only people who dare speak of Englishness are cheerleaders for Brexit, exceptionalism and imperial nostalgia.
Yet there are other stories, equally compelling, about who we are: about the English people's radical inclusivity, their deep-rooted commitment to the natural world, their long struggle to win rights for all. These stories put the Chartists, the Diggers and the Suffragettes in their rightful place alongside Nelson and Churchill. They draw on the medieval writers and Romantic poets who reflect a more sustainable relationship with the natural world. And they include the diverse voices exploring our shared challenges of identity and equality today.
Here, Caroline Lucas delves into our literary heritage to explore what it can teach us about the most pressing issues of our time: whether the toxic legacy of Empire, the struggle for constitutional reform, or the accelerating climate emergency. And she sketches out an alternative Englishness: one that we can all embrace to build a greener, fairer future.
Caroline Lucas is the MP for Brighton Pavilion and the UK's first Green Party MP. Elected to parliament in 2010, she also served as leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2008 to 2012 and as co-leader from 2016 to 2018. She was previously a Member of the European Parliament for ten years. She holds a PhD in English literature. It was her passion for the English countryside that first inspired Caroline to think more deeply about the importance of place in our national life, and her love of literature that led her to respond to the rise of the populist Right by examining the more positive, inclusive stories of England and the English explored in this book.
– Longlisted for the 2024 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation
– The Sunday Times bestseller
"This is not just an inspiring, nuanced and deeply literate book, but that rarest of things – a necessary one."
– Jonathan Coe, author of Bourneville
"I love Caroline Lucas taking her own independent-minded journey into finding a better political future for England through its mythical and literary past."
– Samira Ahmed
"Another England is a visionary book, and it's also written in the clearest, plainest, and most eloquent prose [...] The author's awareness of the complex fullness of our history is steeped in the language and the landscape, and she sees all the more clearly because of it. I was profoundly impressed."
– Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials
"Insightful, inspiring and highly readable, in this book Caroline Lucas invites us to ask ourselves a long overdue question: what type of country do we actually want to be?"
– Kojo Koram, author of Uncommon Wealth
"Deft and wonderfully poetic [...] A fascinating and thoughtful reflection on one of the most fraught and important issues of our time."
– Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism
"Timely, passionate and perceptive [...] Another England tells a new story about England and Englishness, and sets out the possibility for a progressive politics of land, place and nation. This is vital reading."
– Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland and The Lost Words
"Caroline Lucas is a shining light of integrity and values-based politics [...] This is a clarion call to define England and Englishness as our common ground, and a grounding for a transformation of politics and society."
– Kate Pickett, co-author of The Spirit Level
"An urgent, vital book for our fractured nation [...] By showing us the alternatives in our past, Caroline points to alternatives in our future [...] stories that must be heard more urgently than ever."
– Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass
"Essential and magnificent. This book fills a yawning gap, showing how we can create the progressive and inclusive sense of Englishness this country so urgently needs."
– George Monbiot, author of Regenesis
"A progressive vision of the country's literary and cultural history from the trailblazing MP [...] [Offers] much needed crumbs of hope for the future."
– Guardian
"Uncomfortably honest and true [...] Another England is a book we need at this critical time when so much seems lost, when we have become so divided, and so hopeless."
– Michael Morpurgo, former Children's Laureate
"Progressives have for too long treated the idea of an English national identity as an embarrassment, allowing the Right to create and exploit a narrow and chauvinistic version of collective belonging. In this vivid and invigorating book, Caroline Lucas shatters these distorting mirrors and reveals a much more interesting and complex picture of Englishness [...] Engaging, illuminating and ultimately uplifting."
– Fintan O'Toole, author of Heroic Failure
"Another England makes the compelling case that progressives need not shy away from talk of Englishness. Eloquent and persuasive, it offers a powerful new perspective on how we might make our national stories fit for the twenty-first century."
– Jon Snow, former Channel 4 News presenter
"Caroline Lucas brilliantly draws together the narrative threads of our national stories to define some clear blue water between the British state and an England capable of being inclusive and forward looking, while at the same time bearing the weight of its own history."
– Billy Bragg, musician
"We can make England brutal or beautiful. To understand the choice and how we make the right one together, read Another England, a wonderful and timely book on the country we can still be."
– Neal Lawson, Director of Compass
"In Another England, Caroline Lucas sets out to start a conversation about 'what it means to be English'. As such, it provides a remarkably inspiring foundation for such a conversation [...] I absolutely loved it."
– Jonathon Porritt, former leader of the Green Party
"Poetic and clear-sighted, romantic and analytical, principled and open-minded. There's no other politician quite like Caroline Lucas [...] She's dug into the soil of England to find a progressive patriotic vision for the twenty-first century. What she discovers is profound, hopeful and radical. A brave and vital book."
– Ian Dunt, author of How Westminster Works [...] and Why It Doesn't
"Combines a love of English literature and its role in telling the story of England with what's gone wrong in politics [...] A very interesting book."
– Alastair Campbell, The Rest Is Politics
"While patriotism might now provoke connotations of empire or Brexit, the former Green Party leader offers a different outlook by drawing on some more joyful aspects of the nation's past. A perfect read for a divided Britain."
– iNews
