England: The Making of the Myth from Stonehenge to Albert Square - Hardcover

Duffy, Maureen

3.44

18 ratings by Goodreads

9781841151663: England: The Making of the Myth from Stonehenge to Albert Square

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841151661 ISBN 13: 9781841151663

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2001

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In the style of ‘Longitude’ and ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’, a narrative history of the making of the myth of the English. Three thousand years of our island history from Boadicea to Blair, from the acclaimed author of ‘Restitution’.

In 75,000 words Maureen Duffy covers three thousand years of history to show where the idea of the English has come from. The myth begins with the idea that the English were the original inhabitants of this island, that the ‘real’ natives of Britain are the English and anyone else is somehow a foreigner. The idea is captured by G K Chesterton in his popular poem of 1912 which begins ‘Before the Romans came to Rye or out to Severn strode/The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road’.

The first British heroes Boadicea and Caractacus ruled parts of an island that was divided into princedoms with names that sound like modern European football teams: the Iceni, Brigantes, Coritani and Catuvellauni. Boadicea was one of the many charismatic female leaders of the time. Tacitus, the Roman historian wrote that ‘the Britons make no distinction of sex in their appointment of commanders’. Not much evidence of the myth of the English rose here. Even in 1500 an anonymous Italian visitor described the English women as ‘very violent in their passion’.

The myth of the English woman is just one of the many threads in this fascinating book which explores the political, religious, environmental and physical influences that have arrived at the myth that is England. The Norman takeover; how the English became upper class and oppressed the rest of Britain; England becomes the Church of England; the contribution of Shakespeare to the myth; the Garden of England; the identification of class in dialect; the faking of the English working class, the British Bulldog – all are elements of the myth.

As Britain debates its future in Europe, this book – which shows how we have always been continentals – could hardly be more timely.

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Review:

Maybe it's Millennial angst, but there seems to be a new-found pre-occupation to determine the meaning of Englishness. Maureen Duffy's England is the latest contender in the ring and knocks spots off Jeremy Paxman's more populist The English. Whereas Paxman takes the notion of Englishness as a given, Duffy questions the very notion. She points out that the knee-jerk tabloid beliefs of keeping England for the English are based on the utterly false premise that the English were the original inhabitants of the British Isles. Almost nothing is known of England's earliest residents, save that at some stage they moved from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age and gradually began to domesticate the land. Where these first inhabitants actually came from is anybody's guess. By the time the Romans invaded, the locals were firmly divided into separate princedoms, such as the Iceni, the Catuvellauni and the Brigantes--none of whom identified themselves as having a common identity. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, England was invaded by Danes, Celts, Picts and the Angles, who only appear on the scene in the 5th century AD at the request of the British ruler, Vortigern, to help dispense with the Picts. And where did the Angles come from? Germany.

So the essence of what Englishness has come to symbolise in the 20th century is largely the creation of the myths it has invented for itself along the way. These myths reemerge at times of national emergency. Englishness seems never to have more appeal than when the country is under threat. Sometimes the threat is real, such as during the two world wars, but even during the Falklands crisis, when almost no one in the country was at the slightest risk of anything, patriotic fervour ruled the airwaves. And it is no coincidence, as Duffy points out, that the appeal to Englishness is being wheeled out in the European debate. Move the battleground to Englishness and the rational debate is over. It is to Duffy's credit that she manages to buck the trend and combine the two. --John Crace

From the Back Cover:

Before there was the English rose, there was bloodthirsty Boudicca. Before there was BBC English, there were Germanic dialects and Norman French. Before there was the English football fan running amok in Europe, there were the warring tribes of the Iceni, Brigantes, Coritani and Catuvellauni, none of them "English". Behind everything that we now consider to be indisputably English are a host of other stories, other traditions. In this fascinating study, acclaimed author Maureen Duffy takes us through three thousand years of English and British history, illuminating the myths that have come to be such an important part of our national identity.

She begins with the settlement of our cold and rainy island, pointing out that the "English" were far from its first inhabitants. In fact, they didn't arrive until long after the Romans, when the Britons shipped over Germanic mercenaries, Saxons, Angles and Jutes, to help them in the fight against the unruly Picts. The English, as they eventually became known, never left, and a myth was born. In her quest to track down how that myth evolved over the centuries, the author encourages us to look again at what we learnt at school, from King Alfred burning the cakes to Shakespeare's nationalistic history plays, from the signing of the Magna Carta to Gray's Elegy Written in A Country Churchyard, and from the emergence of Victorian values to Margaret Thatcher’s famous assertion that "There is no such thing as society". And at a time when "this England" is becoming increasingly allied to Europe, she provides some startling insights into the nature of our island race. Written with great erudition, perception and humour, England: The Making of the Myth will change your view of England’s past – and England’s future.

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