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Editor's note: Among the things that are essential in understanding history, of whatever country, time period, or focus, are the books and historians of that particular field. As a service to my viewers, heretoforth, on a monthly basis, will be essays about a particular historian, important book or books, biographies about particular British leaders, etc. I sincerely hope they will greatly augment your experience here!
---------------------------------------------------------------- Linda Colley, Britons: Forging A Nation, 1707-1837, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992). Linda Colley is, in my opinion, among the greatest living historians of Modern Britain. Her tour de force Britons, already a "classic," has reinvigorated a section of history that many thought for a long time was dying: cultural and intellectual history. From the early 1960s with the publication of E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, to the early 1990s, social history was the predominant focus of historians of Britain. Since Colley's book, however, much focus has been made on the formation of national and group identities, and cultural history with these purposes in mind, has apparently gained the primacy previously enjoyed by social history. The central argument of Britons is that through extended conflict with France between 1689 and 1815, the constituent ethnic and national groups of English, Scots and Welsh forged into a nation called Great Britain. Artists, satirists, writers, and poets were drafted into this enterprise, and through their respective mediums, they played a great role in the imagining of Great Britain. The book is divided thematically into eight chapters and a conclusion: Chapter 1: Protestants Chapter 2: Profits Chapter 3: Peripheries Chapter 4: Dominance Chapter 5: Majesty Chapter 6: Womanpower Chapter 7: Manpower Chapter 8: Victories? Each of these chapters discusses in great detail the role that religion, commercial interests, outside peripheries, the Georgian monarchy and nobility--among other things--had on the gradual imagining of Britain. Britons is of great use to anyone concerned about history, not only British, but that of any other nation as well. Many of the themes that Colley discusses are both specific to Britain as well as universal. In particular, anyone interested in the current devolution/independence efforts underway in Scotland and Wales, will want to read this book, as it conversely shows how a national identity can become unbound as well! Go To Page: 1
The copyright of the article Britons: Forging A Nation, 1707-1837 (book review) in Modern British History is owned by . Permission to republish Britons: Forging A Nation, 1707-1837 (book review) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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