The English (The Peoples of Europe) - Hardcover

Geoffrey Elton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0631176810 ISBN 13: 9780631176817

Publisher: Blackwell, 1992

Synopsis

Geoffrey Elton traces the evolution of the English sense of nationhood and of the distinctive characteristics of England and the English that gave it form and substance through 12 centuries. The result is a one-volume history of the English nation from its origins to the 1990s. The author shows how the English absorbed other elements into the Germanic origins of their language, thus creating an unusually flexible means of discourse. That the basic features of English society endured for more than a thousand years through vicissitudes that included a succession of foreign occupants of the royal power, an invasion, and two destructive civil wars, may be, the author argues, traced to two factors. The first was the early emergence of an institutional monarchy that created power, order and control. The second, made possible by the first, was a system of law that both preserved rights and liberties, and encouraged a respect for the autonomy of individual thought and action that was and remains the essential aspect of the English constitution. With the establishment of a world empire and industrialization, the English submerged into the larger nation identity called the British. The great transformations that took place in the 19th century effectively brought a close to the story of the English as a nation. At the end of the second millennium the life of this new entity is itself precarious, at once from the renewed nationalism of the Scottish and Welsh, and from the loss of sovereignty presaged by a united Europe. From these forces, the English identity may paradoxically reemerge.

About this title

Review

"This book will surely be recognised as the best single–volume concise history of England – lively, authoritative, and yet personal and humane. Only Elton could have written it." Michael Clanchy

"This work is thoughtful, witty, and graceful in style, a marvel of compression ... Elton argues forcefully that the English formed, and were formed by, a unique reconciliation of individual freedom with monarchically supervised order. Like Joseph Strayer′s on The Medieval Origins of the Modern State (1986), this splendid work is a brief distillation of a lifetime of thoughtful scholarship and deep reflection." Choice

"Anyone may enjoy this book." The Times

"A study that is both authoritative and individualistic, showing a full awareness but not a full acceptance of recent research." Teaching History

From the Back Cover

During the fifth century following the withdrawal of the Roman military establishment from England, the armed incursions of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others of the Barbarian tribes from across the North Sea increased, and soon became a surge. After a relatively short time the subjugation of the British was complete and England a patchwork of warring domains and isolated settlements. Yet within the space of two centuries the English (as the tribes may collectively be called) had achieved a sense of themselves that may fairly be described as nationhood. It is the evolution of this sense and of the distinctive characteristics of England and the English that gave it form and substance which Geoffrey Elton traces through twelve centuries. The result is the first one–volume history of the English nation from its origins to the present for over twenty years: it is a tour de force.

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackwell
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0631176810
• ISBN 13: 9780631176817
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 261