This is the story of Britain's islands and the impress they have made on its culture, history and collective psyche. From Neolithic Orkney and druidical Anglesey to the joys and strangeness of modern Thanet, we explore the furthest reaches of Britain's island topography, once known by the collective term, Britanniae (the Britains). Alice Albinia takes the reader over borders and through disparate island cultures, past and present, listening to neglected voices and subversive stories. The Britannias examines how the smaller islands have wielded disproportionate influence on the mainland, becoming the fertile ground of political, cultural and technological innovations which have gone on to change history throughout the archipelago.

The Britannias also uncovers the enduring mythology of islands ruled by women. Female independence weaves through Roman colonial reports and Welsh medieval poetry, Restoration utopias and island folk songs, transcending and subverting the most male-fixated of ages. Thus, the book looks far back into the past for direction and solace, while searching for new meaning about women's status in the body politic. The Britannias boldly upturns established truths about Britain, while revealing its suppressed and forgotten beauty.