Tribes into Nations takes a fresh look at the ethnic and cultural evolution of the British Isles. It challenges the long tradition of Anglocentric history which saw the past through the prism of Empire. It views the British Archipelago as inescapably caught up in the movements of peoples and cultures that have swept across the European Continent over the millennia. It shows the importance of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and of lost polities such as the Kingdom of the Isles and the Kingdom of Strathclyde, in shaping the political and cultural identity of the British Isles. And it sees history as a process of continual change that leaves little room for certainties and permanence.