Cnut didn't unite Britain -and Henry 1V didn't rule Britain. When oh when will writers learn to differentiate between England and Britain....but what can you expect from an article with that headline?

excellent; and after just one chapter too! This blogg will obviously run and run, chapter by chapter

one skull of an African girl is hardly overwhelming evidence that we've always been a multi-racial melting pot. In view of ignorant comments like this from the politically correct brigade trying to rewrite history let's put the significance of post war immigration into perspective. In Southampton prior to the second world war there was just one single black person living in the whole town.

Is it too much to expect that somebody commenting on a book in an important national newspaper should have read it first?

So, the Celts only arrived in 100 BC did they? Piffle! British natives were trading (tin) with the Phoenicians 5000 years ago! Who were they then? Dinosaurs?

Also the word 'Britain' (I'm sure) comes from an old Welsh word - (NOT a Roman name for a british tribe) - this Celtic language was what Britons spoke before the emergence of Old English in 450AD.

The central flaw of this book - and review - is the insistence that Britain or England are not really countries with any united history or genetic/ethnic unity - so lets invite everyone in Africa and Asia to come here - because one African skull was found in a village graveyard!!! This is all a favourite scam of PC muppets - much as they claim historic figures (Cleopatra, Septimus Africanus, Queen Caroline) were black when they most definitely were not! All a product of the racist African american race relations industry.

If you want, you can argue that ALL countries are made up of incomers - as Mankind evolved in the Rift valley Kenya, so we are all Kenyan immigrants. But if that is your argument, you have to be consistent - all natives of all countries of the world are incomers then, including those in african and asian countries. But where does such waffle get us? More compulsory lessons on Mary flipping Seacole?

Spurious and specious codswallop!

The picture Winder paints is of a Britain as varied and as ethnically mixed as ever...

Not the picture he paints, the lie he tells. If England has always been "varied" and "ethnically mixed", why do liberals like Winder and Taylor drool so lovingly over mass immigration? What difference could it possibly make to a "mongrel" nation? And what on earth does "mongrel" mean when all human beings are identical under the skin anyway?

The contradictions of their own fatuous rhetoric reveals the truth: that England had always been overwhelmingly populated by northern Europeans until the lunacy of mass immigration began in the 20C. And its lunacy will become apparent even to the Independent very shortly.

The writer uses the expression "our island", but his basic argument is that it is anybody's - or at least that the English have no special claim to their part of it. The English are, on this theory, a non-nation cut off from the their true homelands. They have no common history, or heritage, traditions or culture. After all, if they had all these things, all this mongrel stuff would by-the-by. And if we have all these things it does not follow that anyone can be English simply by arriving here with an intention to settle.

Ultimately, there is just a childish train of reason. England was created by migration, so it should be entirely open to further migration. Of course, England as mainly created by invasions (the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman.) On those precedents, and with similarly facile reasoning, doubtless the writer thinks we have done wrong by resisting subsequent invasions.

This is a short blog comment and not an article. I enjoyed the book which goes on to talk about immigrants up to the present day that have contributed a lot to Britain. It brilliantly counters the common perception of immigrants as drains on society.

Re OP:
It's a shame that this misreading of history has been confabulated to contextualise legitimate and reasonable concerns about unsustainable rates of immigration as racist.

Well I'm really chuffed for you all. Try 'Staying Power' by Peter Fryer for more earth shattering revelations.

Due to the current US presidential election the racist debate thet peoPle woulD like to ignoRE is back. britons shoulD not be pointing fingers at the racisT america, they shoulD look ar racism in britain, not complicated racism but everyday racism. I was recently kicked out of a fashionable knights bridge restorant, ZUMA and the motive was racism,because, no reason was given,and I had seen the manager who thuggishly ushered me out, after first checking i wasnt with any white friends, do it again to two other black people a few weeks earlier. The guy had been standing intimidatingly behind me for an hour, this is very common in many restaurants and barsand social places. I do not know whether he assumed i was athief or a drugdealer. Its very sad because unlike in a work situation, icannot have this manager dealt with by the law. The evidence is clear that multiethic/cultural london is a farce. we are living in polarised situations, whereby the black and asian people stick to their own because of this dicrimaination. and this will only further hatred and suspicion.

England was created by the Anglo-Saxons, who were an ethnic group (made up of a few Germanic tribes) and the original English. If there was no mass migration of Anglo-Saxons the English language could not have been spread to the native Britons (''Welsh''). The Anglo-Saxons were illiterate and didn't have adequate schooling and thus the idea that the English are primarily decended from Britons who adopted English language and culture is rather absurd. The view that there was no mass migration of Anglo-Saxons was pushed forward by British nationalists/racists who want the people of England to be apart from the people of the continent. In other words it was created so English Britishist can say "Our ancesters were here first". They weren't. Our primary ancesters were living in Denmark, the Low Countries and Germany whilst another people occupied the lands of Britain.

The Anglo-Saxons were immigrants which would make the English descendants of immigrants. I do not agree with much immigration due to over-crowding, however, I have nothing against any immigrant who manages to come here. I do not think that we should measure cultures by genetics now; I know many people of Indian descend who I would say are more English than those British nationalists who claim they are English.