England: The Making of the Myth from Stonehenge to Albert (Hardcover)

Amazon.co.uk Review
Maybe it's Millennial angst, but there seems to be a new-found pre-occupation to determine the meaning of Englishness. Maureen Duffy's England is the latest contender in the ring and knocks spots off Jeremy Paxman's more populist The English. Whereas Paxman takes the notion of Englishness as a given, Duffy questions the very notion. She points out that the knee-jerk tabloid beliefs of keeping England for the English are based on the utterly false premise that the English were the original inhabitants of the British Isles. Almost nothing is known of England's earliest residents, save that at some stage they moved from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age and gradually began to domesticate the land. Where these first inhabitants actually came from is anybody's guess. By the time the Romans invaded, the locals were firmly divided into separate princedoms, such as the Iceni, the Catuvellauni and the Brigantes--none of whom identified themselves as having a common identity. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, England was invaded by Danes, Celts, Picts and the Angles, who only appear on the scene in the 5th century AD at the request of the British ruler, Vortigern, to help dispense with the Picts. And where did the Angles come from? Germany.

So the essence of what Englishness has come to symbolise in the 20th century is largely the creation of the myths it has invented for itself along the way. These myths reemerge at times of national emergency. Englishness seems never to have more appeal than when the country is under threat. Sometimes the threat is real, such as during the two world wars, but even during the Falklands crisis, when almost no one in the country was at the slightest risk of anything, patriotic fervour ruled the airwaves. And it is no coincidence, as Duffy points out, that the appeal to Englishness is being wheeled out in the European debate. Move the battleground to Englishness and the rational debate is over. It is to Duffy's credit that she manages to buck the trend and combine the two. --John Crace

Review
The notion of 'Englishness' has always been debated and contested, reimagined and reinvented. In recent years, however, the devolution of sovereign powers within Britain and the impending likelihood of economic and monetary union within the evolving European Union has brought the concept under an altogether sharper scrutiny. Maureen Duffy's contribution to the current wave of self-reflection is a brisk narrative account of some of the significant episodes and texts in the last two millenia of English history constituting the reference points to which many of us revert when feeling for our origins and identity as a nation. She concludes by suggesting that there are certain values and traditions which may be said to characterise the English and that these include a tolerance, a recognition of diversity, and an acculturation of foreign influences which can make both internal devolution and the external integration not treats to 'Englishness' but augments to our imagined community. (Kirkus UK)

See all Product Description