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The ‘British Space’: World‐Empire‐Continent‐Nation‐Region‐Locality: A Historiographical Problem
Author(s) -
Robbins Keith
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00566.x
Subject(s) - britishness , mindset , empire , british empire , historiography , history , opposition (politics) , locality , genealogy , geography , political science , ancient history , law , archaeology , epistemology , philosophy , politics , linguistics
What ‘British history’ may be taken to mean is complex. No simple solution to getting it ‘in focus’ exists. On one level, given the global impact of Britain since 1800, culturally and commercially, and the existence of ‘English‐speaking Peoples’, it is an aspect of ‘world history’ and cannot be understood without this wide‐ranging context. That manifested itself most specifically in the expansion of the British Empire, its consolidation and subsequent disintegration. ‘Great Britain’ and ‘Greater Britain’, for some minds, constituted the ‘whole’. Yet, however global the mindset of policy‐makers (and perhaps people) became, the history of the British Isles could not be detached from that of the European continent. ‘Isolation’ could only ever be ‘relative’. On another level, looking inwards, the ‘British Space’ has embraced a multiplicity of overlapping, interlinked, yet distinct nations, regions and localities. Sometimes such identities have been forged or strengthened in opposition to ‘Britishness’, sometimes they have coexisted contentedly with it. At whatever level, the ‘British space’ is inherently a contested one.