Lang - British History For Dummies

British History For Dummies, 3rd Edition

by Sen Lang, PhD

British History For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
The Atrium
Southern Gate
Chichester
West Sussex
PO19 8SQ
England

E-mail (for orders and customer service enquires): cs-books@wiley.co.uk

Visit our Home Page on www.wiley.com

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to permreq@wiley.co.uk, or faxed to (44) 1243 770620.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The contents of this work are intended to further general scientific research, understanding, and discussion only and are not intended and should not be relied upon as recommending or promoting a specific method, diagnosis, or treatment by physicians for any particular patient. The publishe, the author, AND ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED IN PREPARING THIS WORK make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. In view of ongoing research, equipment modifications, changes in governmental regulations, and the constant flow of information relating to the use of medicines, equipment, and devices, the reader is urged to review and evaluate the information provided in the package insert or instructions for each medicine, equipment, or device for, among other things, any changes in the instructions or indication of usage and for added warnings and precautions. Readers should consult with a specialist where appropriate. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. No warranty may be created or extended by any promotional statements for this work. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any damages arising herefrom.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.

For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-470-97819-1 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-119-99180-9 (ebk), ISBN 978-0-470-97836-8 (ebk), ISBN 978-0-470-97837-5 (ebk)

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Sen Lang, PhD is Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University. He studied history at Oxford and has been teaching it to school, college, and university students for the past twenty years. He has written textbooks and edited magazines on nineteenth and twentieth century history for school and college students and he lectures for Cambridge Universitys School of Continuing Education. He has acted as adviser on history teaching to two governments as well as to the Council of Europe, and he twice held the post of Honorary Secretary of the Historical Association. He broadcasts regularly on history for the BBC and for independent local radio.

Dedication

Thanks to Richard Dargie, Fr Feidhlimidh Magennis, and Jasmine Simeone for helping me to keep it genuinely British. To Jason Dunne, Daniel Mersey, and Steve Edwards at Wiley for encouraging (okay, chivvying) me to keep the chapters flowing in. And to all my students, past and present, at Hills Road and Long Road Sixth Form Colleges in Cambridge and at Anglia Ruskin University: You shaped this book more than you know.

Publishers Acknowledgements

Were proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Commissioning, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Steve Edwards

Commissioning Editor: Mike Baker

Assistant Editor: Ben Kemble

Production Manager: Daniel Mersey

Cover Photos: Aspix/Alamy

Colour Insert Photos: Alamy

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees

Layout and Graphics: Joyce Haughey, Vida Noffsinger

Proofreader: Laura Albert

Indexer: Potomac Indexing, LLC

Introduction

O ne day, I was sitting in my college rooms at Oxford when my dad arrived to visit. Dad was one of the British staff at the American Embassy in London, and he had said that a couple of American girls who were over from the States had asked if they could come too, because they had never seen Oxford. Would I mind? Sounded good: Were there any more who wanted to come? As they came through the door, one of the girls gasped and said, with a sort of breathless awe, Gee, I cant believe Im in one of these old buildings! Quite without thinking I said Oh, theyre not that old. Theyre only seventeenth century. You should have seen their faces.

But I was right. Just round the block from where I was sitting were other students sitting in rooms nearly four hundred years older than the ones I was in. (We reckoned our college food was even older than that.) And those rooms are still only thirteenth century. The Crown Jewels are in a tower that was built by William the Conqueror almost a thousand years ago. The amazing thing is not just that these buildings are old but that theyre still in use. You can go to church in Britain in the same buildings where Saxons worshipped, and you can drive along motorways that follow lines laid down by the Romans. Complaining that the British somehow live in the Past is silly: The Past lives in the British.

About This Book