Once again Collyer has captured for us the essence of Britain's coastlands. The author has meticulously planned and executed a series of journeys that have led to a brilliant series of miniature watercolor paintings, superbly reproduced in this book.

Concern and debate over the role of religion in the make up of the United Kingdom is a contemporaneously relevant as it was in the nineteenth century. God and Greater Britain is a survey of the contribution of religion to society, politics, culture and national self-understanding in Britain and Ireland at a pivotal period in their historical development. It derives from primary research as well as from an extensive synthesis of the secondary literature. John Wolffe's timely and stimulating appraisal of the centrality of religion is well illustrated with specific episodes and uniquely places religion in a firm historical perspective.

Archaeologists have had an abiding interest in the rise and fall of state-level societies. Now they are turning their attention to the British Empire.

It was during the course of the eighteenth century that Britain's status as a major maritime and commercial power was forged, shaping the political, economic and military policies of the nation for the next two centuries. Starting from a relatively minor role in global affairs before 1700, Britain rapidly rose to become a significant player in European affairs, and leading imperial power by 1800. In this commanding contribution to the subject, Jeremy Black draws on his extensive expertise to examine how British political culture and public debate in this period responded to, and in part shaped, this transition to an increasingly prominent role in world affairs. Rather than offering a familiar narrative of Britain's eighteenth-century foreign policy, this book instead focuses upon how this policy was debated and written about in British society. Taking as a central theme the debate over policy and the development of public culture and politics, the study explores how these were linked to developing relations with Europe and helped shape colonial strategies and expectations. It highlights how widely shared concerns about such issues as national defence, the strength of the Royal Navy and trade protection, presented little consensus in how they were to be realised and were the subject of fierce public debate. The book underlines how these kinds of issues were not considered in the abstract, but in terms of a political community that was divided over a series of key issues. By probing the problems and issues surrounding the need to define and discuss Britain's foreign policy in semi-public and public contexts, this book offers a fascinating insight into questions of perceived national interest, and how this developed and evolved over the course of the eighteenth century. This work complements the author's other studies by joining the institutional focus seen there to a wider assessment of public politics and print culture, and as such will make a central contribution to studies of eighteenth-century Britain and Europe.

British politics has been revolutionized in the past ten years by two major factors: the hegemony of Thatcherism for eighteen years; and the current dominance of what some say is variant-Blairism--forged in opposition and enthroned in government since May 1997. This volume addresses key political issues which occupy the government and opposition, including: Blair's style of government, the philosophy of the welfare state and the question of its reform, policy-making in the oppressed local government sector, law and order, reform of the voting system, the effect of EU membership on British politics, the much criticized monarchy, privatization, the environment, education, standards in public life, the politics of the health service, and the usefulness of the House of Lords.

Covering the period from the accession of James I to the death of Queen Anne, this companion provides a magisterial overview of the ‘long' seventeenth century in British history. Comprises original contributions by leading scholars of the period Gives a magisterial overview of the ‘long' seventeenth century Provides a critical reference to historical debates about Stuart Britain Offers new insights into the major political, religious and economic changes that occurred during this period Includes bibliographical guidance for students and scholars

In The Idea of Europe and the Origins of the American Revolution, Dan Robinson presents a new history of politics in colonial America and the imperial crisis, tracing how ideas of Europe and Europeanness shaped British-American political culture. Reconstructing colonial debates about the European states system, European civilisation, and Britain's position within both, Robinson shows how these concerns informed colonial attitudes towards American identity and America's place inside - and, ultimately, outside - the emerging British Empire. Taking in more than two centuries of Atlantic history, he explores the way in which colonists inherited and adapted Anglo-British traditions of thinking about international politics, how they navigated imperial politics during the European wars of 1740-1763, and how the burgeoning patriot movement negotiated the dual crisis of Europe and Empire in the between 1763 and 1775. In the process, Robinson sheds new light on the development of public politics in colonial America, the Anglicisation/Americanisation debate, the political economy of empire, early American art and poetry, eighteenth-century geopolitical thinking, and the relationship between international affairs, nationalism, and revolution. What emerges from this story is an American Revolution that seems both decidedly arcane and strikingly relevant to the political challenges of the twenty-first century.