Hello and welcome to the History Extra podcast from BBC History Magazine, Britain's best-selling history magazine.

I'm Ellie Corthorne.

If you had to pick just 50 documents that sum up what it is meant to be British over the centuries,

what would you include?

This is a challenge that Dominic Selwood grapples with in his new book, Anatomy of a Nation, which chronicles the history of British identity through a

diverse and somewhat unexpected selection of its historic documents, from birthday invites and

Valentine's Day letters to musical scores and shipping forecasts.

Emily Briffitt spoke to Dominic to find out more.

Today we are going to be talking about your new book, Anasomy of a Nation, a history of British identity in 50 documents.

So can you give us an idea of the range of documents you include in your book?

And what can they tell us about British identity the range of documents you include in your book, and what can

they tell us about British identity over the centuries?

Yes, with pleasure. So I've taken a very broad definition of identity. I went off back to the

Oxford Dictionary and was really pleased to say that it really encompasses anything that's written

or inscribed. And then the OED gives examples of title, deeds, manuscripts,

tombstones, pictures. So that's given me a really wide palette to work with. So I'm not just

looking at, you know, chronicles or charters. There are so many different things in there.

There are epics. There are poems. There's art, there's painting, there are political pronouncements,

there are court records, maps, newspapers, tapestries, police reports, TV scripts.

So the broadest possible range.

And that's been really helpful because as we go across the entire period from, you know,

950,000 BC up to sort of 2020, it's really useful to be able to bring in all these

...