Table Of ContentA Short
History of
Britain
Also available from Bloomsbury by Jeremy Black
Avoiding Armageddon
Contesting History
Crisis of Empire
Culture in Eighteenth-Century England
New Century War
Rethinking World War Two
The Great War and the Making of the Modern World
The Hanoverians
The War of 1812
Using History
War: A Short History
War and the New Disorder in the 21st Century
A Short
History of
Britain
Second Edition
JEREMY BLACK
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Academic
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First edition published by the Social Affairs Unit 2007
Second edition published by Bloomsbury 2015
© Jeremy Black, 2015
Jeremy Black has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on
or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be
accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-8665-0
PB: 978-1-4725-8666-7
ePDF: 978-1-4725-8667-4
ePub: 978-1-4725-8668-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Black, Jeremy, 1955-
A short history of Britain / Jeremy Black. -- Second edition.
pages cm
First edition published: 2007.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Great Britain--History. I. Title.
DA30.B623 2015
941--dc23
2014030519
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
For Jeannie Forbes
CONTENTS
Preface viii
1 Telling the story 1
2 The history to 1400 11
3 1400–1750 49
4 Britain becomes the world power, 1750–1900 91
5 From 1900 to the present 129
6 Conclusions 165
Note 173
Selected further reading 175
Index 179
PREFACE
A key player in world history, Britain has a history that touches,
directly or indirectly, that of other countries around the world.
Moreover, it is a history that repeatedly repays fresh examination,
both because the present changes so frequently and because new
perspectives emerge on the past. Writing in 2013–14, I face the
possibility of the very dissolution of the British state, as Scotland
may vote for independence in a referendum due in September
2014. Whether or not that happens, the very possibility of such
an outcome reflects a markedly different present-day background
to the past to that which would have been the case only 20 years
ago. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament that helped make this refer-
endum an issue was only established after a referendum following
the Labour victory in the 1997 British general election, with
the first elections for this Parliament held in 1999. In the event,
independence was rejected by the voters.
I am very much aware of changing perspectives, not least because
this process of change explains why it is necessary to have new
histories, and also why individual historians need to reassess their
own views and present their own work anew. There is a particular
need for this in the case of national history; for, without any under-
standing of our past, we cannot appreciate our present or consider
our future. History provides and explains identity, which is at
once a key aspect of individuality and the cement of society; while
collective memory is also a crucial focus of public education. This is
because history is process as well as event: it is not simply a number
of events in the past, but it is also an understanding today of how
they were linked, and why, how and with what results, change
occurred. In understanding the past, it is therefore possible to see
history – change through time – as a process that encompasses us.
Moreover, reference to the past is a significant way of providing
points of guidance as well as validation. Thus, the English barons
PREFACE ix
drawing up demands on King John in 1215 used as their basis
the coronation charter of Henry I (1100) which had promised to
renounce the alleged abuses of his predecessor, William II, William
Rufus (r. 1087–1100). In turn, Magna Carta, the name later given
for the agreement John was obliged to accept in 1215, served
in the early seventeenth century as the basis for constitutional
opposition to claims and actions on behalf of the royal prerogative
under James I (r. 1603–25) and Charles I (r. 1625–49). References
continued. Charles, 11th Duke of Norfolk (1746–1815), a firm
Whig, sought to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Magna
Carta by building an octagonal Great Hall at his seat of Arundel
Castle, a hall dedicated to ‘Liberty asserted by the Barons in the
reign of John’.
History therefore is about time; time as an enfolding context and
change through time. This relationship is generally simplified in
terms of structure and conjuncture or, phrased differently, circum-
stances and events. This is a dichotomy that does not do justice to
the complexity of the dynamic of change, but one that has to stand,
as a product of the extent to which we both express ourselves
through language and are constrained by it.
In the case of Britain’s history, the key structural elements are
in part geographical and integral. The former are, most obviously,
island status off the shore of a nearby continent, as well as the
proximity of most of the country to the sea and to ports. There
has also been, throughout human history in Britain, a generally
benign climate, with plentiful rainfall and with only a limited
period annually below freezing point. This situation has allowed
agriculture without the organisational constraints of irrigation, as
well as all-year-round fishing and shipping. There are, moreover,
plentiful construction and power sources in terms of readily
worked timber, stone, brick and coal.
The structural elements in British history are also a product
of the development of a particular society and political culture.
This development is complex and in part controversial, not least
because discussion of it relates to issues of quality and approval,
as well as the question of national exceptionalism or uniqueness.
Nevertheless, the characteristic nature and role of law, property
rights, family structure and political liberty are all crucial to
British society and political culture. So also is a quest for freedom,
however conditional it might in practice have been.
