A Useful History of Britain: The Politics of Getting Things Done,Michael Braddick

-About this book

The United Kingdom has not yet lasted as long as the Kingdom of Wessex, and may not do so. Conventional histories of Britain, though, tell the story of the origins of the UK as if that was the natural endpoint of political development on the island. Here, Michael Braddick sets out to do something else―to ask how people in the past used political power to get things done.
Offering a concise thematic overview, it shows how history can speak directly to current political debates. Many people feel that national governments are irrelevant to their lives and that the problems we now face are beyond our control-climate change, disease and global economic regulation for
example. But much of this is not new. The ideas and challenges driving political life have always affected larger parts of the globe: British experience has always been part of a shared and parallel global history, often directly linked by institutions reaching well beyond the island. On the other
hand, throughout the last 6000 years people have acted at smaller scales too.
What we really have in common with previous inhabitants of this island is the ambition to use political power to get things done, not a shared destiny culminating in government based in Westminster.
This book sets out to learn more broadly from their experience, giving us a much fuller perspective on where we are now. Just as importantly, it gives us more resources for thinking about what we might do next.

-CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xi
Introduction: From Stonehenge to Global Britain—The History of Political Life on Britain 1
1. Political Life: Power Over Our World, Power Over Each Other 14
2. Mobilizing Ideas and the Uses of Collective Institutions 38
3. Material Conditions and the Uses of Collective Institutions 70
4. Organizational Capacity and the Changing Limits of the Possible 99
5. Geographies of Collective Institutions and
Identities: Which Groups Take Action for
What Purposes? 124
6. Political Inclusion: Who Makes Things Happen? 151
7. Change Over Time: Phases in the History of Political Life 186

Conclusion: Globalizing the British Past—Parallel and Shared Histories 214

Notes 225

Index 24

-Caractéristiques

Date de parution:22 juillet 2021

Éditeur ‏ : ‎ OUP Oxford

Langue ‏ : ‎ Anglais

NB.de pages ‏ : ‎ 272 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0198848307

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0198848301

Poids de l’article ‏ : ‎ 424 g

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.5 x 2.5 x 22.1 cm