- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (3 Jan 1985)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140225897
- ISBN-13: 978-0140225891
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 477,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Gwyn Alf Williams was one of the greatest historians of the past 50 years. The fact that he was Welsh was a bonus. He was a true renaissance scholar with interests that went beyond his homeland. Examine his books and you will see an expert on the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, the definitive study of the Merthyr Rising, a brilliant comparative study of early 18th century radicalism "Artisans and San Culottes" in Britain and France and works on subjects as varied as Goya to a history of Medieval London. Gwyn Alf came from that generation of historians such as E P Thompson, Christopher Hill and fellow Welsh intellectual Raymond Williams who were disillusioned with the development of the communist party particularly after Hungarian tragedy of 1956 and in turn became trenchant critics of Stalinism. Between them and their contemporaries like Eric Hobsbawn. Rodney Hilton and later Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn, they have produced a corpus of work that still dominates much academic history
"When was Wales" was a by product of the 13 part documentary series on the history of Wales that Gwyn Alf undertook with the eminent broadcaster Wynford Vaughan Thomas for HTV which led to a remarkable piece of television namely "The Dragon has Two Tongues". The two men were wonderful counterpoints to one another. Thomas was very much a establishment figure with a cultivated BBC accent, Gwyn Alf a fiery "Marxist magpie" (Thomas's description) was as sharp as a razor and using his slight stutter to great effect. It made for excellent populist history where these two old rogues lined up to score points off one another and which on times were bruising. Thomas subsequently wrote an article entitled "On being a reactionary" to describe the experience since he was frequently outflanked on the left by Gwyn Alf. That said on occasions there were times in the series when both men became caricatures of themselves.
"When Was Wales" sees Welsh history has characterised by sharp breaks, dislocations and ruptures in which the Welsh reinvent themselves but at huge economic, social and environmental cost. As such it is not an "introductory" text on Welsh history but a fiercely argued almost polemical work which sweeps across the historical landscape from the 6th century to the 1980s. It is brilliantly written and researched and is infused with all the colour, insight and invective that Gwyn Alf possessed and displayed in the superb lectures he gave at Cardiff University and on his regular speaking duties as "a redundant historian" (he had become a Emeritus Professor at Cardiff in 1989). In parts you can hear him spitting out his judgements and he tackles head on and with contempt the schools which forbid the teaching of the Welsh language in "Welsh not" policies. But he is not afraid either to highlight the dangers of the converse latter day impact of perceptions of the English speaking majority particularly in the Valleys of Wales of "subsidies going everywhere except into their culture" In other places he brilliantly charts the rise of industrialisation and its impacts not least "Wales on the move" in the industrial protests of the 1930s and even the effect of "posh shops" in Cardiff on his mother. On times he is hilarious but cutting speaking of the development of "a Costa Bureaucratica in the south and a a Costa Geriatrica in the North, in between sheep, holiday homes burning merrily away and 50 folk museums where there used to be communities" And that is the point "When was Wales" is not orthodox history but the product of a brilliant and eclectic mind by a man who was no mere historical bystander. Gwyn Alf cared deeply about Wales and by 1980 with the negative vote on Devolution and the rise of Thatcherism did not like what he saw. He grew deeply pessimistic about the countries prospects and succumbed to what he called "the invasion of doubt". It led to the books concluding judgements that -
"The Welsh as a people have lived by making and remaking themselves in generation after generation, usually against the odds, usually within a British context. Wales is an artefact which the Welsh produce. If they want to. It requires an act of choice. Today, it looks as though that choice will be more difficult than ever before. There are roads out towards survival as a people, but they are long and hard and demand sacrifice and are at present unthinkable to most of the Welsh . . . Some kind of human society, though God knows what kind, will no doubt go on occupying these two western peninsulas of Britain, but that people, who are my people and no mean people, who have for a millennium and a half lived in them as a Welsh people, are now nothing but a naked people under an acid rain".
Gwyn Alf died in 1995 never seeing the arrival of devolution, the development of Welsh medium schools and a renaissance in arts and culture. His judgement in some parts of the book have proved wide of the mark and the conclusion was overly pessimistic (although its dramatic flourish which was so Gwyn Alf is memorable) but is does offer a warning that global changes are occurring which do threaten small nations. One which still remains one of the poorest in the UK and is about face huge challenges yet again. All I know was that in 1985 I spent £3.95 on a paperback edition of "When was Wales" and I treasure it to this day.
"When was Wales" was a by product of the 13 part documentary series on the history of Wales that Gwyn Alf undertook with the eminent broadcaster Wynford Vaughan Thomas for HTV which led to a remarkable piece of television namely "The Dragon has Two Tongues". The two men were wonderful counterpoints to one another. Thomas was very much a establishment figure with a cultivated BBC accent, Gwyn Alf a fiery "Marxist magpie" (Thomas's description) was as sharp as a razor and using his slight stutter to great effect. It made for excellent populist history where these two old rogues lined up to score points off one another and which on times were bruising. Thomas subsequently wrote an article entitled "On being a reactionary" to describe the experience since he was frequently outflanked on the left by Gwyn Alf. That said on occasions there were times in the series when both men became caricatures of themselves.
"When Was Wales" sees Welsh history has characterised by sharp breaks, dislocations and ruptures in which the Welsh reinvent themselves but at huge economic, social and environmental cost. As such it is not an "introductory" text on Welsh history but a fiercely argued almost polemical work which sweeps across the historical landscape from the 6th century to the 1980s. It is brilliantly written and researched and is infused with all the colour, insight and invective that Gwyn Alf possessed and displayed in the superb lectures he gave at Cardiff University and on his regular speaking duties as "a redundant historian" (he had become a Emeritus Professor at Cardiff in 1989). In parts you can hear him spitting out his judgements and he tackles head on and with contempt the schools which forbid the teaching of the Welsh language in "Welsh not" policies. But he is not afraid either to highlight the dangers of the converse latter day impact of perceptions of the English speaking majority particularly in the Valleys of Wales of "subsidies going everywhere except into their culture" In other places he brilliantly charts the rise of industrialisation and its impacts not least "Wales on the move" in the industrial protests of the 1930s and even the effect of "posh shops" in Cardiff on his mother. On times he is hilarious but cutting speaking of the development of "a Costa Bureaucratica in the south and a a Costa Geriatrica in the North, in between sheep, holiday homes burning merrily away and 50 folk museums where there used to be communities" And that is the point "When was Wales" is not orthodox history but the product of a brilliant and eclectic mind by a man who was no mere historical bystander. Gwyn Alf cared deeply about Wales and by 1980 with the negative vote on Devolution and the rise of Thatcherism did not like what he saw. He grew deeply pessimistic about the countries prospects and succumbed to what he called "the invasion of doubt". It led to the books concluding judgements that -
"The Welsh as a people have lived by making and remaking themselves in generation after generation, usually against the odds, usually within a British context. Wales is an artefact which the Welsh produce. If they want to. It requires an act of choice. Today, it looks as though that choice will be more difficult than ever before. There are roads out towards survival as a people, but they are long and hard and demand sacrifice and are at present unthinkable to most of the Welsh . . . Some kind of human society, though God knows what kind, will no doubt go on occupying these two western peninsulas of Britain, but that people, who are my people and no mean people, who have for a millennium and a half lived in them as a Welsh people, are now nothing but a naked people under an acid rain".
Gwyn Alf died in 1995 never seeing the arrival of devolution, the development of Welsh medium schools and a renaissance in arts and culture. His judgement in some parts of the book have proved wide of the mark and the conclusion was overly pessimistic (although its dramatic flourish which was so Gwyn Alf is memorable) but is does offer a warning that global changes are occurring which do threaten small nations. One which still remains one of the poorest in the UK and is about face huge challenges yet again. All I know was that in 1985 I spent £3.95 on a paperback edition of "When was Wales" and I treasure it to this day.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
From the beginning(the Romans) to the end (1984 -the tories). A bit heavy on the late 19th and 20th century, but a very good intro to welsh history
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Thought provoking and always interesting.
27 Feb 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
In the interest of precision, I will state that I read the Penquin paperback edition of this book.
At this point, this book is somewhat dated with regard to recent history, but remains well worth reading because of the questions that it raises, as exemplified by the title. They are worth pondering, not just with regard to the Welsh, but in relation to nationality, nation and nationalism in general.
Williams points out that at many points in history, not everyone that we think of as Welsh would have been considered as such. In the pre-Norman days, only gentry were considered to be true Welshmen and women, the many serfs and slaves were not, just as so much of the population of ancient Athens were considered to be foreigners. This would apparently include one of my favorite fictional sleuths, Brother Cadfael. Williams is concerned that in the present, this includes people who do not speak Welsh. He notes that, at the time of writing at least, there was little English-language programming on Welsh subjects, even though that excluded a large percentage of the population.
Williams also recounts the regional differences in Wales, which sometimes persist over a long period of time.
The history is never romanticized, and Williams seems rather pessimistic about the future. He has me rooting for Welsh, none the less.
At this point, this book is somewhat dated with regard to recent history, but remains well worth reading because of the questions that it raises, as exemplified by the title. They are worth pondering, not just with regard to the Welsh, but in relation to nationality, nation and nationalism in general.
Williams points out that at many points in history, not everyone that we think of as Welsh would have been considered as such. In the pre-Norman days, only gentry were considered to be true Welshmen and women, the many serfs and slaves were not, just as so much of the population of ancient Athens were considered to be foreigners. This would apparently include one of my favorite fictional sleuths, Brother Cadfael. Williams is concerned that in the present, this includes people who do not speak Welsh. He notes that, at the time of writing at least, there was little English-language programming on Welsh subjects, even though that excluded a large percentage of the population.
Williams also recounts the regional differences in Wales, which sometimes persist over a long period of time.
The history is never romanticized, and Williams seems rather pessimistic about the future. He has me rooting for Welsh, none the less.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Was there ever a separate Wales?
27 Jan 2009
Format:Hardcover
Arguing that Welsh identity's about to vanish, and that the one-fifth who speak Welsh out of the two-and-a-half million in the Principality (as of twenty-five years ago) hold the English-speakers in contempt as "di-Gymraeg" or "Welsh-less," Professor Williams ends his densely compiled, if relatively brief, Penguin paperback history dramatically. It's a leftist, populist, and straightforward response to romantics and traditionalists. Williams relates a series, from its formation, of rearguard if clever Welsh reactions largely to external, increasingly English, actions.
He criticizes those venerating the "hen wlad fy nhadau," the "old land of my fathers." Williams suspects any "Welsh Wales" set apart from the increasingly polyglot, multicultural, majority who leans in their suburbs and cities towards American even more than English culture. Concluding around the time of the miners' strike during Thatcher's term, the 1985 book circles back to its earlier contention: there never may have existed a separate polity. Wales, as soon as it was defined, had to place itself in relation to England.
As its own nation, "only one king in Welsh history is called good." (54) Medieval boasts of bards and kings gain Williams' cold scrutiny. Trapped by complicated "kindred" demands to share power and wealth among relatives, feudal Welsh rulers competed among each other and against the always encroaching Saxons-- their longest if not their only foes. No romanticization here: serfs and slaves remain silent, barely noticed among the chronicles, and Williams reminds us of their erasure.
The Welsh heartlands early on began to contract against the Saxons and their Welsh collaborators. The "gwerin" chose allegiance to their language, folk tradition, and soon the Welsh Bible. Their loyalty to Nonconformism and Dissent, and later the Liberal Party and then Labour, marked the separation of Cymry Cymraeg from the Marches, and the borderlands and coasts that the English began to populate and then industrialize. Those areas, especially in the south-east, turned into cities and factories, sharing only regional boundaries with the mountain people, and the north.
The re-definition of Great Britain, by the time of the union with England in 1536, strongarmed Wales as a "junior partner" in what Williams characterizes as a proto-mafia controlled by colonial capital and the imperial Crown. Wales never stood a chance against Westminster, but often weakened early on due to its own disloyal fifth column. The rivalries within medieval Welsh inheritance lured many nobles into offers they could not refuse with the Saxon mobs.
This intricate narrative moves slowly. While a mass market title, this could be used in the classroom effectively; John Davies' subsequent "Hanes Cymru"/ "A History of Wales" became a decade later Penguin's first Welsh-language title, and the standard reference in both tongues. Yet, Williams may provide a shorter, if no less rich, guide for readers wanting a history of Wales in half the pages. He also appends maps and a short reading lists for those needing direction; there are no footnotes outside of a few clarifications. Compact yet scholarly, its three hundred closely printed and carefully arranged pages demand steady attention-- if considerable familiarity with British history, Welsh culture, and English politics.
I was alerted to a minor slip when citing Williams. He may have erred in crediting John Dee for taking credit for the term "British Empire" in the 1580s. Dee along with Peckham and Hakluyt popularized this coinage in the later 1500s to propagandize for the Madoc legend revived by Humphrey Llwyd around 1559. This tale could justify British, via the Welsh, pre-Colombian settlement of the Americas, to strengthen Elizabethan anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic claims. This also co-opted Welsh intellectuals, explorers, and leaders into serving their new Queen.
Williams tells such episodes from a typical tale, of Welsh pride mingled with frequent subservience, with mixed detachment and energy. When he discusses highlights such as Glyn Dwr's rebellion, the Rebecca Riots, the "China" red-light section of Merthyr, the 1926 strike, or the determination to revolt against the Means Tests of the Depression, the tone lightens and quickens. The six pages describing "Imperial Wales" and the Liberal ascendancy under Lloyd George splendidly sum up a the dazzling facets of a confident period for a newly diverse nation.
Williams tends to distance himself from Welsh Wales, even as he knows it well. His sympathies, if well explained, side with the much-maligned majority that for him represents 80% of contemporary Wales. They made the modern nation prosper: "Industrial capitalism came hard and it was fought hard. People were trying to build community in the teeth of it. To those problems, no tradition offered any answer; they had to find their own. They had to walk naked." (191)
Yet, much as he defends their interests, he honestly must face the imminent inclusion of Wales within an Anglo-American hegemony. Under Thatcher, facing nuclear threats and pollution from the sky, Williams characterizes his people with natural sympathy and millennial despair. After fifteen hundred years, their chronicler of his kinfolk wonders if now they're "nothing but a naked people under an acid rain." (305)
He criticizes those venerating the "hen wlad fy nhadau," the "old land of my fathers." Williams suspects any "Welsh Wales" set apart from the increasingly polyglot, multicultural, majority who leans in their suburbs and cities towards American even more than English culture. Concluding around the time of the miners' strike during Thatcher's term, the 1985 book circles back to its earlier contention: there never may have existed a separate polity. Wales, as soon as it was defined, had to place itself in relation to England.
As its own nation, "only one king in Welsh history is called good." (54) Medieval boasts of bards and kings gain Williams' cold scrutiny. Trapped by complicated "kindred" demands to share power and wealth among relatives, feudal Welsh rulers competed among each other and against the always encroaching Saxons-- their longest if not their only foes. No romanticization here: serfs and slaves remain silent, barely noticed among the chronicles, and Williams reminds us of their erasure.
The Welsh heartlands early on began to contract against the Saxons and their Welsh collaborators. The "gwerin" chose allegiance to their language, folk tradition, and soon the Welsh Bible. Their loyalty to Nonconformism and Dissent, and later the Liberal Party and then Labour, marked the separation of Cymry Cymraeg from the Marches, and the borderlands and coasts that the English began to populate and then industrialize. Those areas, especially in the south-east, turned into cities and factories, sharing only regional boundaries with the mountain people, and the north.
The re-definition of Great Britain, by the time of the union with England in 1536, strongarmed Wales as a "junior partner" in what Williams characterizes as a proto-mafia controlled by colonial capital and the imperial Crown. Wales never stood a chance against Westminster, but often weakened early on due to its own disloyal fifth column. The rivalries within medieval Welsh inheritance lured many nobles into offers they could not refuse with the Saxon mobs.
This intricate narrative moves slowly. While a mass market title, this could be used in the classroom effectively; John Davies' subsequent "Hanes Cymru"/ "A History of Wales" became a decade later Penguin's first Welsh-language title, and the standard reference in both tongues. Yet, Williams may provide a shorter, if no less rich, guide for readers wanting a history of Wales in half the pages. He also appends maps and a short reading lists for those needing direction; there are no footnotes outside of a few clarifications. Compact yet scholarly, its three hundred closely printed and carefully arranged pages demand steady attention-- if considerable familiarity with British history, Welsh culture, and English politics.
I was alerted to a minor slip when citing Williams. He may have erred in crediting John Dee for taking credit for the term "British Empire" in the 1580s. Dee along with Peckham and Hakluyt popularized this coinage in the later 1500s to propagandize for the Madoc legend revived by Humphrey Llwyd around 1559. This tale could justify British, via the Welsh, pre-Colombian settlement of the Americas, to strengthen Elizabethan anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic claims. This also co-opted Welsh intellectuals, explorers, and leaders into serving their new Queen.
Williams tells such episodes from a typical tale, of Welsh pride mingled with frequent subservience, with mixed detachment and energy. When he discusses highlights such as Glyn Dwr's rebellion, the Rebecca Riots, the "China" red-light section of Merthyr, the 1926 strike, or the determination to revolt against the Means Tests of the Depression, the tone lightens and quickens. The six pages describing "Imperial Wales" and the Liberal ascendancy under Lloyd George splendidly sum up a the dazzling facets of a confident period for a newly diverse nation.
Williams tends to distance himself from Welsh Wales, even as he knows it well. His sympathies, if well explained, side with the much-maligned majority that for him represents 80% of contemporary Wales. They made the modern nation prosper: "Industrial capitalism came hard and it was fought hard. People were trying to build community in the teeth of it. To those problems, no tradition offered any answer; they had to find their own. They had to walk naked." (191)
Yet, much as he defends their interests, he honestly must face the imminent inclusion of Wales within an Anglo-American hegemony. Under Thatcher, facing nuclear threats and pollution from the sky, Williams characterizes his people with natural sympathy and millennial despair. After fifteen hundred years, their chronicler of his kinfolk wonders if now they're "nothing but a naked people under an acid rain." (305)
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