A Useful History of Britain: The Politics of Getting Things Done

Description

The United Kingdom has not yet lasted as long as the Kingdom of Wessex, and may not do so. Conventional histories of Britain, though, tell the story of the origins of the UK as if that was the natural endpoint of political development on the island. Here, Michael Braddick sets out to do something else―to ask how people in the past used political power to get things done. Offering a concise thematic overview, it shows how history can speak directly to current political debates. Many people feel that national governments are irrelevant to their lives and that the problems we now face are beyond our control-climate change, disease and global economic regulation for example. But much of this is not new. The ideas and challenges driving political life have always affected larger parts of the globe: British experience has always been part of a shared and parallel global history, often directly linked by institutions reaching well beyond the island. On the other hand, throughout the last 6000 years people have acted at smaller scales too. What we really have in common with previous inhabitants of this island is the ambition to use political power to get things done, not a shared destiny culminating in government based in Westminster. This book sets out to learn more broadly from their experience, giving us a much fuller perspective on where we are now. Just as importantly, it gives us more resources for thinking about what we might do next. Cover A Useful History of Britain: The Politics of Getting Things Done Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements Contents List of Illustrations Introduction: From Stonehenge to Global Britain: The History of Political Life on Britain 1: Political Life: Power Over Our World, Power Over Each Other The Roman Empire: Collective Institutions and Differential Power Private Property and the Public Good Public Works Collective and Differential Power: The EU 2: Mobilizing Ideas and the Uses of Collective Institutions Ideas and Power Relations Inheritance, Tenure, and the ‘Feudal Compact’ Shaping the Uses of Collective Power Roman Ideas and Their Legacy Christianity and Anglo-SaxonGovernment The Rise of Political Arithmetic and Political Economy Conflict and Resistance Church and State: Religious and Political Obligations Diverse and Contested Ideas 3: Material Conditions and the Uses of Collective Institutions Economic Change and Political Complexity Hunter-Gatherers,Farmers, and Traders The Slave Trade: How Collective Power Shapes Economic Exchange Industrialization and Global Interdependence Inter-StateCooperation: From Westphalia to the EU Environmental Change and Collective Institutions Government and Technological Change 4: Organizational Capacity and the Changing Limits of the Possible Collective Institutions, Famine, and Disease Collective Institutions and Economic Change: The Romans The regulation of credit Path Dependency 5: Geographies of Collective Institutions and Identities: Which Groups Take Action for What Purposes? Local and Regional Structures Dynastic and National Structures Supra-nationaland Inter-State Organizations Institutions, People, and Political Identities 6: Political Inclusion: Who Makes Things Happen? Inequality: Differential Power Accessing the Power of Ideas Appropriation Triangulation Rejection, Subversion, and Imagining Alternative Worlds Accessing the Power of Collective Institutions Lobbying and Petitioning Triangulation: Using the Law and the Church Alternatives to Existing Institutions: Direct Action Informal Spaces, Alternate Worlds, Making a Life Historicizing Agency: Representation, Deliberation, Administration 7: Change Over Time: Phases in the History of Political Life The Neolithic to the Iron Age: Material History, Identity, and Collective Power 55 BCE to 950: The Impact of Rome, Christianity, and the Vikings Dynastic Kingdoms I: 950–1300 Dynastic Kingdoms II: 1300–1650 A Hybrid State with a Maritime Empire: 1650–1800 Industrial Britain, 1800–1945 Post-War, 1945–2018 Conclusion: Globalizing the British Past: Parallel and Shared Histories National History in a Global Age A History for Use Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Conclusion Picture Credits Further Reading Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Conclusion Index