ABSTRACT
On those previous occasions when I have sought to dampen the enthusiasm of the zealots of the ‘new British history’,2 have questioned their judgement on three grounds, to which I would now add two more. These are as follows. First, much of what has been praised as exemplary of the genre has been so preoccupied with issues of high politics that the ‘new British history’ seems to be further widening the rift that already exists in British historiography between political history and social and economic history. Second, the focusing of attention on happenings on the two islands of Britain and Ireland, and the insistence, as John Morrill puts it, ‘that the unit of study ought to be the British Isles’,3 imply an integrity for ‘These Islands’ probably in excess of any that ever existed, and distract our minds from the lively but varied contacts that were maintained by the several different communities on the two islands
with the European Continent. Third, much of what appears as ‘new British history’ is nothing but ‘old English history’ in ‘Three-Kingdoms’ clothing, with the concern still being to explain the origin of events that have always been regarded as pivotal in England’s historical development. Fourth, the concern with the holistic approach results in a tendency to emphasise similarity at the expense of difference, and ignores the fundamental diversities that made it so difficult for the several peoples on the two islands to live within a single polity. Fifth, the study of the newly defined subject in all its aspects is beyond the reach of most historians, because it is only those with a good reading knowledge of three Celtic languages as well as English and Latin who can master all the relevant sources.
