England, England (1998) is a satirical science fiction novel by Julian Barnes which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The novel is set in the Britain of the not-too-distant future, and chronicles the creation of a giant England themed amusement park, called "England, England", which also operates as an independent state. On the one hand, the novel is the fictional biography of Martha Cochrane, a clever and ambitious Englishwoman with a rural lower middle-class background who, after graduating from university, attempts to climb the ladder of success within corporate Britain.

At the age of about 40, she reaches the zenith of her career when she is employed by the eminent British entrepreneur Sir Jack Pitman whose final project -- a miniature re-creation on the Isle of Wight of all that is essentially English, something more than, and superior to, a theme park -- she helps to realize. After she has dethroned the ageing Pitman by threatening to expose to the world his monthly visits to a high-class brothel, she holds the post of Chief Executive Officer for a few years. But then she breaks up with her lover and accomplice, Paul Harrison, is dismissed as a result and, as persona non grata, leaves for the Continent.

After some years of aimlessly travelling the world she re-enters the real Britain, which by now has regressed to an unimportant, insular and almost pre-industrial existence. It is there, somewhere in Wessex, that she spends her final days, solitary, thoughtful and not altogether unhappy. On the other hand, England, England is the story of Sir Jack Pitman's gigantic project of draining England of everything that is essentially English (including the royals), reassembling it on the Isle of Wight and turning that island into an independent member state of the European Union -- a project which quite soon develops its own momentum and which survives its founding fathers and mothers.

At the end of the novel, which reaches well into the 21st century, "Old England", which has adopted its old name, Anglia, is a depopulated country (there is talk of "boat people") reduced in size (after a blitzkrieg, it only consists of the old Anglo-Saxon heptarchy) and characterized by atavism (cf. "Deep England"), while England, England (the former Isle of Wight) is still going strong both as a major tourist attraction and a sovereign state in its own right. In the course of the novel, Pitman becomes "Island Governor", but in reality he wants to turn the island into a quasi-dictatorship run solely on the principles of the free market.

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