ABSTRACT

In Uniting the Kingdom? a group of the most distinguished historians from Britain and Ireland assemble to consider the question of British identity spanning the period from the Middle Ages to the present.
Traditional chronological and regional frontiers are broken down as medievalists, early modernists and modernists debate the key issues of the British state: the conflicting historiographies, the nature of political tensions and the themes of expansion and contraction.
This outstanding collection of essays forms an illuminating introduction to the most up-to-date thinking about the problems of British histories and identities.

chapter 1|9 pages

Introduction

The enigma of British History
ByAlexander Grant, Keith Stringer

chapter 2|19 pages

British History as a ‘new subject’

Politics, perspectives and prospects
ByDavid Cannadine

chapter 3|17 pages

The United Kingdom of England

The Anglo-Saxon achievement
ByJames Campbell

chapter 4|17 pages

Foundations of a disunited kingdom

ByJohn Gillingham

chapter 5|20 pages

Overlordship and reaction, c. 1200–c. 1450

ByRobin Frame

chapter 6|26 pages

Scottish foundations: Thirteenth-century perspectives

ByKeith Stringer, Alexander Grant

chapter 7|22 pages

The High Road from Scotland: Stewarts and Tudors in the mid-sixteenth century

ByMarcus Merriman, Jenny Wormald

chapter 8|14 pages

Composite monarchies in early modern Europe

The British and Irish example
ByConrad Russell

chapter 9|23 pages

Irish, Scottish and Welsh responses to centralisation, c. 1530–c. 1640

A comparative perspective
ByNicholas Canny

chapter 3|23 pages

Three kingdoms and one commonwealth?

The enigma of mid-seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland
ByJohn Morrill

chapter 11|15 pages

Varieties of Britishness

Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the Hanoverian state
ByS. J. Connolly

chapter 12|15 pages

A nation defined by Empire, 1755–1776

ByP. J. Marshall

chapter 13|21 pages

Englishness and Britishness

National identities, c. 1790–c. 1870
ByEric Evans

chapter 14|11 pages

An imperial and multinational polity

The ‘scene from the centre’, 1832–1922
ByKeith Robbins

chapter 15|22 pages

Letting go

The Conservative Party and the end of the Union with Ireland
ByJohn Turner

chapter 16|15 pages

How united is the modern United Kingdom?

ByDavid Marquand

chapter 17|11 pages

Conclusion

Contingency, identity, sovereignty
ByJ. G. A. Pocock