Great Britain: Identities, Institutions and the Idea of Britishness since 1500 (The Present and The Past) - Softcover

Robbins, Keith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0582031192 ISBN 13: 9780582031197

Publisher: Routledge, 1997

Synopsis

This is a timely exploration of national identity in Great Britain over nine hundred years of history. Our attitudes to the nation state are changing - national assemblies in Scotland and Wales and growing pressures for regional assemblies. In his vigorous new survey, Professor Robbins provides the background to these changing attitudes. He considers the development as well as the possible disintegration of the sense of "Britishness" among the inhabitants of Britain and investigates how - and why - they have preserved their own national and regional identities across several centuries of co-existence.

Keith Robbins is Vice Chancellor of the University of Wales Lampeter. Among his many books, Longman has also published his highly successful study The Eclipse of a Great Power: Modern Britain 1870-1992 (Second Edition 1994). He is also General Editor of Longman's famous series ofProfiles in Power, with over 20 titles already in print and many more in preparation.

About this title

Review:

‘The range of material consulted and cited is impressive and, throughout, there is a sense of an acute and critical intellect at work.’ History

‘a masterly and reflective narrative history of what came to constitute "Great Britain"’ English Historical Review

'as good an introduction to British political and ideological history as one is likely to get in a single volume' Nations and Nationalism

Synopsis:

This work is an exploration of the relationships of the constituent parts of Great Britain, to understand how England, Wales, and Scotland have interacted and influenced each other, and how the modern British policy and its distinctive institutions have emerged amongst them. A key theme of this book is the development - and perhaps now the disintegration - of their sense of Britishness. The author investigates how and why they have preserved their own national and regional identities, and what these mean for our own times where cultural and regional units are steadily replacing the nation state as the building block of an increasingly federated world. In so doing the author throws light not only on the history of Britain itself, and Britain's tangled dealings with Ireland, but also on Britain's changing role in the international community, as her imperial past gives way to new and less certain relationships with Europe, America, and the wider world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0582031192
• ISBN 13: 9780582031197
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 392