A book that is thoroughly researched and written for accessibility, serving academics and post-graduates but readable for the general public. The story of the United Kingdom is a mixture of myth, mystery and fact. This book provides a fact-based appraisal – Very Highly Recommended.
NAME: The United Kingdom, The Unification & Disintegration of Britain Since AD 43 FILE: R2959 AUTHOR: John D Grainger PUBLISHER: Pen and Sword BINDING: hard back PRICE: £25.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Roman occupation, Celt wars, Saxon wars, Viking invasion, unity under Knut, Medieval wars between England, Scotland Wales and Ireland, Tudor wars, Union of Crowns, Union of Parliament, botched devolution
ISBN: 1-52674-819-3
IMAGE: B2959.jpg BUYNOW: tinyurl.com/yyj43mfp LINKS: DESCRIPTION: A book that is thoroughly researched and written for accessibility, serving academics and post-graduates but readable for the general public. The story of the United Kingdom is a mixture of myth, mystery and fact. This book provides a fact-based appraisal – Very Highly Recommended. The British Isles have been inhabited since before the last Ice Age, although it is unclear how much of the population was settled and how much was migratory. As the ice retreated, it severed the land bridge to Europe and the North Sea inundated the land. From that point it can be assumed that the British Isles were settled on a permanent basis, although periodically a new wave of immigrants arrived, producing a patchwork quilt of people that the Romans discovered when they invaded. The Romans can be considered the creators of a United Kingdom in that they built roads and settlements with protecting forts even across Scotland, before deciding that Scotland was not worth the effort of including it in their administration of Britain. When the Romans left, the British Isles became a patchwork of individual kingdoms frequently at war with each other and with new waves and raiders and migrants. England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland may have been separate countries for much of the time after the Romans left, but each was internally divided to the point where Norwich, then the second city of Medieval England, was at war with Great Yarmouth and the men of Great Yarmouth fought the men of Gorleston even into the 19th Century. The English invaded Wales and built fortresses around that country to maintain their rule and periodically controlled Scotland. Ireland was also periodically ruled by England. The point where formal union was established was at the beginning of the 17th Century when a childless Elizabeth Tudor died and the English Crown passed to James VI of Scotland who moved South to rule from London. However, Scotland retained its own legal system and Parliament. Then many Scots were near bankruptcy when the Belize Bubble burst and they lost their investments. This prompted them to look for deep pockets to dip into and they asked for a union of Parliaments in return for being able to dip into English money, a practice which has continued ever since. The administration of Blair and Brown flirted with devolution in the hope of shoring up the Labour vote in Wales and Scotland on the eve of the 21st Century. Their botched plans have created a serious mess that has left no one satisfied. What remains to be seen is what happens if Britain breaks free of the European Union and becomes a sovereign nation against. The probability is that this will strengthen the Union as part of root and branch constitutional reform and a new aggressive trading stance to go out into the world once more. If Britain fails to exit the EU, it then faces either colonization with European Commission Reich Protectors administering four colonies created by vertically slicing the British Isles into four pieces, or return as an EU Member and be cut into four pieces that are then glued onto other inconvenient parts of the EU to destroy national identities. The author has worked through the twists and turns of the history of the United Kingdom, dispelling some of the myths and misunderstandings along the way.