Britain's Europe

Britain's referendum on European Union membership was never going to answer what David Cameron called Britain's ‘European question’. Instead, as Brendan Simms sets out to show, it was the latest episode in a thousand-year history of conflict and cooperation between Britain—and before it England—and the rest of Europe. As Simms makes clear from the start, it matters how that history is told. Taking the approach of ‘our island story’—setting Britain apart from the rest of Europe—fails to adequately grasp how Europe made Britain and Britain made Europe. With Brexit now unfolding, there is a more urgent need than ever for the British to appreciate the flaws of believing they can turn their backs to the continent. Simms offers readers a chronological history of British–European relations, successfully setting out his case for viewing developments from the Vikings to David Cameron in a joined-up way. He is unapologetically ‘Whiggish’ in his approach, seeing a clear line through that long history. His focus is on foreign policy and constitutional matters, leaving aside economics, society and culture, which makes for a book many readers of international relations will be comfortable with, but which neglects the role of domestic factors in the development and politics of Britain. Nevertheless, throughout the book, the importance of viewing Britain's history through a European lens is hammered home again and again. Whether it is the military campaigns of King Henry V, the Acts of Union between England and Scotland, the acquisition and dissolution of the British empire, the development of the British state's institutions, all are explained in part by Britain's strategic focus on the politics of Europe. This focus, Simms argues, has been as much ideological as security-based: in the last few hundred years the defence of liberty and the defence of the European balance of power were often linked in British thinking

Aside · Brexit · Economic history · Economics · European union · Political science · Politics · Referendum · Sociology · History · Law · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics · Scottish History and National Identity