The Two Unions

In this lucid, powerfully argued and often rather witty book, Alvin Jackson sets out to compare systematically the genesis, complex histories, and contrasting fortunes of the Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Irish unions. In some ways, this seems an obvious route to take. The history of Ireland, Scotland and union is, as Jackson emphasises, a deeply entangled one, certainly since 1706 and in fact for much longer than that. Shared or intertwined experience is a strongly recurrent theme in this past, including, most obviously, the pressure and example of the Scots union on the making of the Irish union of 1801, the impact of home rule and land legislation in the 1880s, a shared emphasis in Scots and Irish politics on defending the Irish union before 1921, and so on. If Marc Bloch was correct in his famous suggestion that propinquity and interconnection made for good comparative history, then this was a comparison waiting to happen; and the interesting question might be why it has not been essayed previously. The probable answer is that bits of it have been, or at least a comparative aspect has informed discussion of them; nobody, however, has matched the ambition, scope, and, indeed, mastery of this work. Yet Jackson’s theme is more profound than simple comparison; it is survival—how and why the unions survived, to the extent, of course, that they did

Art · Genealogy · Home rule · Irish · Kingdom · Legislation · Literature · nobody · Political science · Politics · Scots · Theme (computing · History · Law · Philosophy · Scottish History and National Identity