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Quote by Linda Colley

“Contrary to received wisdom, the British are not an insular people in the conventional sense - far from it. For most of their early modern and modern history, they have had more contact with more parts of the world than almost any other nation - it is just that this contact has regularly taken the form of aggressive military and commercial enterprise.”

Quote by Linda Colley

Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

Work

Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

This book delves into the political, social, and cultural transformations that shaped modern Britain during the 18th and early 19th centuries, focusing on key events and figures that contributed to the nation's formation. more

Author

Linda Colley is a prominent historian specializing in British history, with a particular focus on the history of the British Empire. Born on September 13, 1949, she has made significant contributions to the field with her insightful analyses and scholarly writings. more

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“At one level Great Britain at the beginning of the 18th century was like the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, both three and one, and altogether something of a mystery.”

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“From the 15th century to 1688, England and Wales, like Scotland, had been peripheral kingdoms in the European power game, more often at war with each other that with Continental powers, and - except under Oliver Cromwell - scarcely very successful on those occasions when they did engage the Dutch, or the French, or the Spanish.”

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Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

“A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so regularly and so remorsely into war and imperial expansion abroad.”

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Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

“Jacobitism involved much more than a debate about the merits of a particular dynasty. Men and women were well aware that its success was almost certain to involved them in civil war. And the more politically educated knew that the Stuart Pretender was a pawn in a worldwide struggle for commercial and imperial primacy between Britain and France.”

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Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

“When it comes to exploring the mind in the framework of cognitive neuroscience, the maximal yield of data comes from integrating what a person experiences - the first person - with what the measurements show - the third person.”

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“The pre-war empire had been sufficiently informal and sufficiently cheap for Parliament to claim authority over it without having to concern itself too much about what this authority entailed. The post-war empire necessitated a much greater investment in administrative machinery and military force. This build-up of control had to be paid for, either by British taxpayers or by their colonists.”

“In the last quarter of the 20th century, Britons have been understandably obsessed with the problem of having too little power in the world. In the third quarter of the 18th century, by contrast, their forebears were perplexed by the problem of having acquired too much power too quickly over too many people.”

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“I was born a Scotsman and a bare one. Therefore I was born to fight my way in the world.”

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“A British imperium enabled Scots to feel themselves peers of the Ebglish in a way still denied them in an island kingdom. The language bears that out very clearly. The English and the foreign are still all too inclined to refer to the island of Great Britain as 'England'. But at no time have they ever customarily referred to an English empire.”

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“Can it be entirely accidental that the most famous fictional spy of them all, James Bond, Number 007, deadly marksman, intriguer, the ultimate man behind the curtain, sexual athlete and ruthless patriot, is also a Scot, as was the author, whose wish-fulfilment he was?”

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Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837

Source: Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837