ABSTRACT
Historians have been exploring a new concept of British history, in the sense of developments throughout, and interaction between, the various people inhabiting the British Isles. This kind of British history did indeed have antecedents among nineteenth-century writers. The revival of separatist sentiments in the 1970s, exemplified by the growth of the Scottish National Party and of Plaid Cymru, indicates at the least a more critical attitude in some quarters to England's traditional dominance within the Union. The real pattern of state formation, however, was more of a continuum of success and failure, ranging from southern England, through northern England and Wales, to Scotland, Northern Ireland, and at the opposite extreme the present Republic of Ireland. Ideally, however, British history should complement nationalist history: the former focusing on common traditions and experiences and the process of state-building, the latter on the individual characteristics of the four nations of the British Isles.
