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The Peoples of the British Isles: A New HistoryVolume I: .From Prehistoric Times to 1688 Stanford E. Lehmberg, Professor of Emeritus, University of Minnesota During the last twenty-five years a number of scholars have argued that the study of English history should be replaced by an examination of British history, including Scotland, Wales, and Ireland as well as England itself. The close link between England and these areas has always been appreciated, but too often they have been part of the narrative only when England was involved in wars or diplomatic encounters with them. More and more it is acknowledged that Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have interesting histories that need to be understood on their own terms, not merely as they influenced the development of another realm. J. G. A. Pocock pleaded for this approach in a seminal article published in 1975, and a forum on "The new British History in Atlantic perspective" appeared in the American Historical Review in 1999. Hugh Kearney’s book The British Isles: A History of Four Nations (1989) offered intriguing insights but did not provide a continuous narrative. Other important studies with a British compass include Conrad Russell’s Fall of the British Monarchies (1991) and Linda Colley’s Britons (1992), but both are monographs with a limited chronological scope, Russell covering only the years from 1637 to 1642 and Colley dealing with 1707—1837. Clearly there has been a need for a new text providing a comprehensive account of British history. In the last several decades, too, many of those who teach English or British history have come to believe that their subject has been conceived too narrowly with regard to topics as well as to geography. As modes of historical research shifted their focus, it became evident that traditional histories of England dealt too exclusively with past politics. Social history needed to be added if we were to understand the lives of ordinary people, since high politics is necessarily the work of small numbers of people, generally men enjoying special privileges. In the continuing evolution of historical study, social history itself has come to center on new subjects–population studies, family history, and in particular the role of women. Older textbooks did not deal adequately with such matters. The present volume, then, aims at being a history of the men and women who lived in all parts of the British Isles, not just England. It begins in prehistoric times and continues through 1688, the year of the Glorious Revolution. It may be read in conjunction with two similar volumes written by T. W. Heyck, which deal with the period from 1688 to the present. Professor Heyck and I believe that our books provide the first inclusive account of British history suitable for use by students and other interested readers. Despite these newer, broader approaches, the inner core of this volume remains a history of England. This is appropriate, since England was the largest of the four realms considered here, with the highest population, and since it came to dominate all of them. There is some attempt to integrate the several national histories, but they are also treated separately; Scottish and Welsh nationalists will appreciate this approach. Political history remains the basis for the organizing narrative, for many of the changes in society occurred in response to political developments like the Anglo- Saxon invasions or the Norman Conquest and can best be understood in connection with them. Books that are not firmly anchored in events and personalities run the risk of becoming abstract or amorphous, and many students have told me they find them boring. I have made a special effort to include women’s history whenever possible, but there is still less than I would have liked. Early sources for the study of women’s roles in society are inadequate, and despite much fine recent scholarship many interesting topics remain unexplored. Intellectual, religious, and artistic history–subjects that I myself find especially interesting–have a place here, but I have denied myself the pleasure of writing about them at length because of the constraints of space and balance. The study of literature is a separate enterprise, and this volume makes no claim to include it, but important authors and writings are mentioned at points where they intersect with the general narrative. A bibliography suggesting books for further study is appended to each chapter. I have included a few historical novels that are especially successful in evoking the feel of the past. No book appears more than once in these lists; in cases where a single vo-ume relates to more than one chapter it has been cited at the point where its usefulness begins. Throughout, I have been mindful of the experience of teaching British history to thousands of students for more than four decades. I have attempted to explain terms that have puzzled them, and I have tried to emphasize those topics that they have found most engaging. I hope that readers will come to share my continuing enthusiasm for the subject. Stanford E. Lehmberg |
