Post-1945, Britain quickly relinquished its status as the world's largest imperial power, but it was the massive cultural and social changes at home that truly transformed British society.

Wark talks to actors Frances de la Tour, Charles Dance and Alex Jennings ... the Battle of Hastings and how Mary Tudor earned her reputation as Great Britain’s “bloodiest” monarch.

(Required reading: Oriana Pawlyk has a great piece on the years of warnings that preceded the crash.) Politically, there’s at least one critical difference: The prevailing sense at the end of ...