The English stand now in need of a new sense of home and belonging - a reassessment of who they are. This is a history of who they were, written from the perspective of the twenty-first century. It begins by considering how the English state identified an English nation which, from very early days, seems to have seen itself as not simply the creature of state or king. It considers also how in modern times the English nation survived shattering revolutions in technology, urban living, and global conflict, while at the same time retaining a softer, more human vision of themselves as a people in touch with their nature and their land. They claimed that there was more to living in England than work and wages, there was more to running a vast empire than just exploiting it. For all its faults and inequalities, they identified with their state. For all their shortcomings they were confident of their place in history. As little as forty years ago, these ideas were not much in doubt. Though vague and often contradictory, they held together as the English people held together -as a whole. Indeed, 'Englishness' was hardly recognized as a subject for analysis, except perhaps in a rather ironic and self-mocking vein. But now 'the national question' is back and history is at the top of the agenda. From a rich store of historical memory and possibility, Robert Colls connects the identity of England in the past with the changing and uncertain identity of England today.

Why is English national identity so enigmatic and so elusive? Why, unlike the Scots, Welsh, Irish and most of continental Europe, do the English find it so difficult to say who they are? The Making of English National Identity, first published in 2003, is a fascinating exploration of Englishness and what it means to be English. Drawing on historical, sociological and literary theory, Krishan Kumar examines the rise of English nationalism and issues of race and ethnicity from earliest times to the present day. He argues that the long history of the English as an imperial people has, as with other imperial people like the Russians and the Austrians, developed a sense of missionary nationalism which in the interests of unity and empire has necessitated the repression of ordinary expressions of nationalism. Professor Kumar's lively and provocative approach challenges readers to reconsider their pre-conceptions about national identity and who the English really are.

This timely book provides an extensive account of national identities in three of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom: Wales, Scotland and England. In all three contexts, identity and nationalism have become questions of acute interest in both academic and political commentary. The authors take stock of a wealth of empirical material and explore how attitudes to nation and state can be understood by relating them to changes in contemporary capitalist economies, and the consequences for particular class fractions. The book argues that these changes give rise to a set of resentments among people who perceive themselves to be losing out, concluding that class resentments, depending on historical and political factors relevant to each nation, can take the form of either sub-state nationalism or right wing populism. Nation, Class and Resentment shows that the politics of resentment is especially salient in England, where the promotion of a distinct national identity is problematic. Students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology and politics, will find this study of interest.

Governing England examines the state of England's governance, identity and relationship with the other nations of the UK. It brings together academic experts on constitutional change, territorial politics, nationalism, political parties, public opinion, and local government both to explain thecurrent place of England within a changing United Kingdom, and to consider how the "English constitution" is likely to develop over the coming years.At a time when questions of territory and identity have grown increasingly politicised, Governing England offers a deeper academic analysis of how England and Englishness are changing. The central questions it addresses are whether, why, and with what consequences there has been a disentangling ofEngland from Britain within the institutions of the UK state, and of Englishness from Britishness at the level of culture and national identity.This volume includes competing interpretations of what has changed in terms of English nationhood.

From Afua Hirsch - co-presenter of Samuel L. Jackson's major BBC TV series Enslaved - the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals the uncomfortable truth about race and identity in Britain today. You're British. Your parents are British. Your partner, your children and most of your friends are British. So why do people keep asking where you're from? We are a nation in denial about our imperial past and the racism that plagues our present. Brit(ish) is Afua Hirsch's personal and provocative exploration of how this came to be - and an urgent call for change. 'The book for our divided and dangerous times' David Olusoga

Who are the British today? For nearly three hundred years British national identity was a unifying force in times of glory and despair. It has now virtually disappeared. In Patriots, Richard Weight explores the decline of Britishness and the rise of powerful new identities in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Based on a wealth of original research, it is scholarly in depth and scope, yet never departs from a thoroughly readable and entertaining style. 'Here are the themes of Orwell's The Lion and the Unicorn stretched over the subsequent sixty years and widened to embrace the whole United Kingdom. Brimming with zest and feel this is politico-cultural history at its best.' Peter Hennessy'Wide-ranging, intelligent, sensible and important.' Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph 'A marvellously rich, ambitious and at times iconoclastic study by a young historian of how, in the broadest sense, national identity in Britain has changed in the last 60 or so years' David Kynaston, Financial Times 'A major work: the fruit of long research, wide reading and hard thinking, engagingly written, bubbling with fresh ideas' Stephen Howe, Independent

Ideas of Englishness, and of the English nation, have become a matter of renewed interest in recent years as a result of threats to the integrity of the United Kingdom and the perceived rise of that unusual thing, English nationalism. Interrogating the idea of an English nation, and of how that might compare with other concepts of nationhood, this book’s wide-ranging, comparative and historical approach to understanding the particular nature of Englishness and English national identity, will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural studies and history with interests in English and British national identity and debates about England’s future place in the United Kingdom.

Feeling British argues that the discourse of sympathy both encourages and problematizes a sense of shared national identity in eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature and culture. Although the 1707 Act of Union officially joined England and Scotland, government policy alone could not overcome centuries of feuding and ill will between these nations. Accordingly, the literary public sphere became a vital arena for the development and promotion of a new national identity, Britishness. Feeling British starts by examining the political implications of the Scottish Enlightenment's theorizations of sympathy the mechanism by which emotions are shared between people. From these philosophical beginnings, this study tracks how sympathetic discourse is deployed by a variety of authors - including Defoe, Smollett, Johnson, Wordsworth, and Scott - invested in constructing, but also in questioning, an inclusive sense of what it means to be British.

A study of the nature of national sentiment in fourteenth-century England, in its political and constitutional context.