
ABOUT THIS BOOK
PUBLISHER: William Collins
ISBN: 9780008394424
RRP: £12.99
PAGES: 560
PUBLICATION DATE:
April 10, 2025
BUY THIS BOOK
As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop.org affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Storms Edge
By Peter Marshall
From Peter Marshall, winner of the 2018 Wolfson Prize, Storm’s Edge is a new history of the Orkney Islands that delves deep into island politics, folk beliefs and community memory on the geographical edge of Britain.
Peter Marshall was born in Orkney. His ancestors were farmers and farm labourers on the northern island of Sanday – where, in 1624, one of them was murdered by a witch. In an expansive and enthralling historical account, Marshall looks afresh at a small group of islands that has been treated as a mere footnote, remote and peripheral, and in doing so invites us to think differently about key events of British history.
With Orkney as our point of departure, Marshall traverses three dramatic centuries of religious, political and economic upheaval: a time when what we think of as modern Scotland, and then modern Britain, was being forged and tested.
Storm’s Edge is a magisterial history, a fascinating cultural study and a mighty attestation to the importance of placing the periphery at the centre. Britain is a nation composed of many different islands, but too often we focus on just one. This book offers a radical alternative, encouraging us to reorient the map and travel with Peter Marshall through landscapes of forgotten history.
Peter Marshall
Peter Marshall, a native of the Orkney Islands, has since 2006 been Professor of History at the University of Warwick, and is a leading expert in the history of the Reformation and its impact in the British Isles and beyond. He is a two times winner of the Harold J. Grimm Prize for Reformation History, and has been shortlisted for the Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award. In 2018, he was awarded the prestigious Wolfson History Prize for his book Heretics and Believers. He is a frequent reviewer for the TLS, Literary Review, Tablet and other periodicals, and a regular lecturer to school and community groups. Peter is married with three daughters, and lives in Leamington Spa.