Can we detect the English national identity through architecture during the 1920s and 1930s?

In his recent contribution to the debates about English and British identities 'The Making of English National Identity', Krishan Kumar, a professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, writes that English national identity is an enigma, so elusive, and difficult to pin down, partly because of inseparability with British national identity, partly because of the intricate relation to other peoples: Scottish, Wales, and Irish. Although the history of Great Britain is understood as the history of four nations: England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in general, it has largely been considered as the English history. However as the conqueror of the 'inner empire' of Great Britain, the English repressed its own national consciousness, and imposed uniformity and equality on the contributions of the various parts of the Isles, while Scottish, Welsh, and Irish had constantly begun cultivating their national identities since the Middle Ages. Kumar, Krishan. 200

Sweet Tooth for Empire: Sugar and the British Atlantic World

With increasing productivity and rising standards of living, a new spirit of consumerism reached Britain. After its entry into the Atlantic World economy, though Scotland never fully benefited until the 1707 Act of Union, all classes eventually gained access to a wide variety and exotic assortment of consumer products. Among them, sugar, valued for its sweetness since the Middle Ages, maintained a special position, dominating all exports from British America. Embraced by the British populace, sugar provided an impetus for colonization and required imported African labor. Sugar and a newfound consumerism at home drove the British Atlantic World

William Godwin and Catholicism

This essay traces Godwin‘s changing attitude to Catholicism by exploring a variety of texts generally considered marginal to his oeuvre and a hitherto unexamined selection of his unpublished manuscripts

Ethnicity and the Writing of Medieval Scottish history

Historians have long tended to define medieval Scottish society in terms of interactions between ethnic groups. This approach was developed over the course of the long nineteenth century, a formative period for the study of medieval Scotland. At that time, many scholars based their analysis upon scientific principles, long since debunked, which held that medieval 'peoples' could only be understood in terms of 'full ethnic packages'. This approach was combined with a positivist historical narrative that defined Germanic Anglo-Saxons and Normans as the harbingers of advances of Civilisation. While the prejudices of that era have largely faded away, the modern discipline still relies all too often on a dualistic ethnic framework. This is particularly evident in a structure of periodisation that draws a clear line between the 'Celtic' eleventh century and the 'Norman' twelfth. Furthermore, dualistic oppositions based on ethnicity continue, particularly in discussions of the law, kingship, lordship and religion

Writing in Britain and Ireland, c. 400 to c. 800

No abstract available

The Roman Contribution to the Common Law

Although the Roman law was not received in England to the extent that it was received on the Continent, Professor Re submits that its influence was hardly less pervasive. The concepts, the terminology, the universality, and the jurisprudential principles of that vast system were transmitted and infused into the body of English law throughout its development. While the growth of the Anglo-American law still continues, so may the contributions to its development by the Roman law, whose own growth so closely parallels the growth of civilization

Recent developments in the theory of very long run growth : a historical appraisal

This paper offers a historical appraisal of recent developments in the theory of very long run growth, focusing on two main areas: (1) linkages between wages, population and human capital and (2) interactions between institutions, markets and technology. Historians as well as economists have recently begun to break away from the traditional practice of using different methods to analyse the world before and after the industrial revolution. However, tensions remain between the theoretical and historical literatures, particularly over the unit of analysis (the world or particular countries) and the role of historical contingency

British economic growth : 1270 - 1870

We provide annual estimates of GDP for England between 1270 and 1700 and for Great Britain between 1700 and 1870, constructed from the output side. The GDP data are combined with population estimates to calculate GDP per capita. We find English per capita income growth of 0.20 per cent per annum between 1270 and 1700, although growth was episodic, with the strongest growth during the Black Death crisis of the fourteenth century and in the second half of the seventeenth century. For the period 1700-1870, we find British per capita income growth of 0.48 per cent, broadly in line with the widely accepted Crafts/Harley estimates. This modest trend growth in per capita income since 1270 suggests that, working back from the present, living standards in the late medieval period were well above “bare bones subsistence”. This can be reconciled with modest levels of kilocalorie consumption per head because of the very large share of pastoral production in agriculture