A History of Britain by Simon Schama (BBC Books, £25)

WHEN I studied history - back in the Dark Ages - I was taught to separate the facts from the myths and then form an hypothesis based on those facts. Nowadays the practice seems to be get a good theory first, the more sensational the better, and make the facts fit.

This, unfortunately, seems to by the premise behind Simon Schama's two-volume history of the British Isles, released to coincide with the BBC2 series of the same name (the second book is out next year).

I watched the first programme, which took us up to the Norman Conquest, last week and was disappointed. It was good television but not great television - and it wasn't original. Michael Wood was doing the same sort of thing more a decade ago, only with more authority, more charisma and - my wife tells me to say - a lot more sexily.

Would the book provide more substantial fare? The dust jacket blurb promised it would, and, for sure, Schama includes a lot of facts omitted or sketched over in the TV series, but the drawback is that both book and TV series are presented in the same way.

But whereas his jack-rabbit approach, leaping hither and thither, from side to side and backwards and forwards, works well enough on TV with lots of visual links to guide us through the minefield of British history, on paper it doesn't come off anywhere near as well. Indeed, it can, at times, border on the infuriating.

And Schama will have his way, even if the facts don't quite agree. Take the Conquest. Schama tends to dismiss the Vikings as trouble-making pirates, conveniently forgetting their contribution to the make-up of the English - half the nation was under Viking influence and England had been ruled by a Viking king in the 11th century.

And history, Mr Schama, does not revolve around the South (although that's a theory that will go down well with the BBC, who believe civilisation stops north of Watford).

The amount of research that has gone into his book establishes Schama's credentials as a serious historian, but he seems to want to carve his place in the public affections not as an historian but as a wordsmith.

His efforts in producing the polished phrase, the pithy retort are far greater than his efforts to tell a fascinating story clearly and concisely. And his dismissal of facts that may well be relevant but don't fit his theories with a well-turned put-down does him no credit as an historian.

The result is a book that is entertaining yet insubstantial. Many of the bon mots may stick in our memory, but will the historical facts?

If Schama succeeds in awakening a long dormant interest amongst the general public in our fascinating history, then he has done his job. But I fear that this book well earn him plaudits for the way he tells the story rather than for the story itself.