David Edgerton
Over to EU
Continental Drift: Britain and Europe from the End of Empire to the Rise of Euroscepticism
By Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon
Cambridge University Press 590pp £24.99 order from our bookshop
Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation
By Brendan Simms
Allen Lane 302pp £20 order from our bookshop
Why has much of the United Kingdom been so Eurosceptic? One common answer, from Eurosceptics and pro-Europeans alike, is that the UK has been and remains very different from what is called continental Europe. The differentiating feature, it is typically suggested, is the ‘empire’, supplemented in the more recent past by the ‘special relationship’ with the United States. This thesis has been reinforced by a historiography, particularly prominent in the USA, that has sought to put the empire back into British history.
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'Fiona Shaw, in Jonathan Miller’s production, is the best shrew I have seen. She starts off in a mustard yellow dress with a mustard sharp tongue.'
From the archive, Kate Kellaway on a 1988 production of 'The Taming of the Shrew'.
http://ow.ly/TWfX50y2Udw
'He was not a revolutionary at all of course. He was only marginally a socialist. His tradition was rooted in the Liberal aristocracy, and his politics were entirely bounded by Parliament.'
From the archive, Paul Foot on Tony Benn's diaries.
http://ow.ly/3VBf50y0Ebe
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