A History of the British Isles

Prehistory to the Present

Kenneth L. Campbell

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781474216685
• eBook ISBN: 9781474216708
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2017 A History of the British Isles is a balanced and integrated political, social, cultural and religious history of the British Isles in all its complexity, exploring the constantly evolving dialogue and relationship between the past and the present. A wide range of topics and questions are addressed for each period and territory discussed, including England's Wars of the Roses of the 15th century and their influence on court politics during the 16th century; Ireland's Rebellion of 1798, the Potato Famine of the 1840s and the Easter Rising of 1916; the two World Wars and the Great Depression; British cultural and social change during the 1960s; and the history and future of the British Isles in the present day. Kenneth Campbell integrates the histories of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales by exploring common themes and drawing on comparative examples, while also demonstrating how those histories are different, making this a genuinely integrated text. Campbell's approach allows readers to appreciate the history of the British Isles not just for its own sake, but for the purposes of understanding our current political divisions, our world and ourselves.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Prologue to history: The prehistory of the British Isles
• Chapter 2 Roman Britain: From Bath to the Antonine Wall
• Chapter 3 Anglo-Saxon England and the Celtic lands in the early Middle Ages
• Chapter 4 Conquest, colonization, and culture: The High Middle Ages from 1066 to 1348
• Chapter 5 Plague, politics, and power: The later Middle Ages from the Black Death to the Wars of the Roses
• Chapter 6 Religion, warfare, and dynastic politics: The Tudors and the Stewarts in the sixteenth century
• Chapter 7 From Stewart to Stuart: Political culture, the monarchy, and the three kingdoms, 1603–1642
• Chapter 8 Civil wars, Interregnum, and Restoration: From Edgehill to the Battle of the Boyne
• Chapter 9 The British Isles in the first half of the eighteenth century: From the Bill of Rights to the Battle of Culloden
• Chapter 10 Reform, war, and rebellion: Political culture in Britain and Ireland, 1746–1789
• Chapter 11 The French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and their aftermath, 1789–1832
• Chapter 12 The Victorian period: Politics, society, and culture in the nineteenth century
• Chapter 13 Britain’s moment as a world power: The British Empire in the nineteenth century
• Chapter 14 In the shadow of the Great War, c. 1890–1918
• Chapter 15 The interwar years
• Chapter 16 The Second World War
• Chapter 17 The post-war period, 1945 to 1973: Social change and the end of empire
• Chapter 18 Demands, disappointments, hopes, and promises, c. 1973–2004
• Chapter 19 Conclusion: The British Isles in the twenty-first century
• Notes
• Index