An engaging popular history of the magically enchanting early-English civilization on which Tolkien based his world of The Lord of the Rings.

From the Baillie Gifford and Orwell Prize longlisted author of The Ministry of Truth, an equally original and revealing exploration of one of the central concerns of our times: fantasies and nightmares of the end of the world, from Mary Shelley’s The Last Man to the Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must Go