The decline of Great Britain as a world power was the result of long-term economic change and two world wars. Except in a few areas, American authorities did not set out to supplant Britain: indeed until the Second World War they were hesitant about the use of power. But when they embraced it, a variety of factors ensured that it was Britain's place that was taken. This book offers an authoritative analysis of the stages of displacement and the complex feelings aroused by the process on both sides of the Atlantic. As such it describes a transfer of power which will surely be seen as one of the most fundamentally important events of the twentieth century.
The middle decades of the twentieth century witnessed the great dramas of the ending of Western imperial rule in Africa and Asia. A series of nationalist onslaughts was launched against the British Empire and these greatly reshaped the modern world. Professor Anthony Low has studied the end of the British Empire and its aftermath for many years. This volume brings together for the first time many of his major essays on the subject.
This is a timely exploration of national identity in Great Britain over nine hundred years of history. Our attitudes to the nation state are changing - national assemblies in Scotland and Wales and growing pressures for regional assemblies. In his vigorous new survey, Professor Robbins provides the background to these changing attitudes. He considers the development as well as the possible disintegration of the sense of "Britishness" among the inhabitants of Britain and investigates how - and why - they have preserved their own national and regional identities across several centuries of co-existence. Keith Robbins is Vice Chancellor of the University of Wales Lampeter. Among his many books, Longman has also published his highly successful study The Eclipse of a Great Power: Modern Britain 1870-1992 (Second Edition 1994). He is also General Editor of Longman's famous series ofProfiles in Power, with over 20 titles already in print and many more in preparation.
Astronomy was a popular and important part of Victorian sciences, and British astronomers carried telescopes to remote areas in India, North America, and Caribbean and Pacific islands to watch solar eclipses. This book tells the full story of these expeditions: the long periods of planning and financing, and the day-to-day work of getting to field sites, setting up camp, and preparing, observing, and recording eclipses.
"The decline of Great Britain as a world power was the result of long-term economic change and two world wars. Except in a few areas, American authorities did not set out to supplant Britain: indeed until the Second World War they were hesitant about the use of power. But when they embraced it, a variety of factors ensured that it was Britain's place that was taken. This book offers an authoritative analysis of the stages of displacement and the complex feelings aroused by the process on both sides of the Atlantic. As such it describes a transfer of power which will surely be seen as one of the most fundamentally important events of the twentieth century."--...
For Britons of all classes the years of austerity during and after the Second World War were years of disorientation and fears of resurgence of the worst of the interwar decades. This title reminds the years of real austerity in Britain.
A WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD NOTABLE BOOK After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared to be doomed. Yet it grew to become the greatest, most diverse empire the world had seen. Then, within a generation, the mighty structure collapsed, a rapid demise that left an array of dependencies and a contested legacy: at best a sporting spirit, a legal code and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire covers a vast canvas, which Brendon fills with vivid particulars, from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments.
Turning the conventional Break-Up of Britain narrative inside-out, this book scans the horizon of overseas projections of British identities that unravelled during the decades of global decolonisation
The familiar image of the British in the Second World War is that of the plucky underdog taking on German might. David Edgerton's bold, compelling new history shows the conflict in a new light, with Britain as a very wealthy country, formidable in arms, ruthless in pursuit of its interests, and in command of a global production system. Rather than belittled by a Nazi behemoth, Britain arguably had the world's most advanced mechanized forces. It had not only a great empire, but allies large and small. Edgerton shows that Britain fought on many fronts and its many home fronts kept it exceptionally well supplied with weapons, food and oil, allowing it to mobilize to an extraordinary extent. It created and deployed a vast empire of machines, from the humble tramp steamer to the battleship, from the rifle to the tank, made in colossal factories the world over. Scientists and engineers invented new weapons, encouraged by a government and prime minister enthusiastic about the latest technologies. The British, indeed Churchillian, vision of war and modernity was challenged by repeated defeat at the hands of less well-equipped enemies. Yet the end result was a vindication of this vision. Like the United States, a powerful Britain won a cheap victory, while others paid a great price. Putting resources, machines and experts at the heart of a global rather than merely imperial story, Britain's War Machine demolishes timeworn myths about wartime Britain and gives us a groundbreaking and often unsettling picture of a great power in action.
