A New History of Britain since 1688 Four Nations and an Empire

For decades, scholars have been urging a "four nations" approach to British history. Susan Kingsley Kent's ambitious and timely A New History of Britain since 1688: Four Nations and an Empire finally delivers on that promise. Ranging from 1688 to the present, the book covers developments in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, along with the British empire, providing a lively and often gripping account of the ever-changing conflicts that have characterized British history. In prose that is accessible and engaging, Kent not only includes the histories of the four "nations" of the British Isles and the vast overseas empire within a single frame, she also seamlessly interweaves the thematic concerns of her previous scholarship--gender history, environmental history, and imperial and colonial history--into the history of British politics, society, and imperial culture. The result is a brilliant synthesis.

Susan Kingsley Kent is Professor of Distinction in the Department of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

List of Maps
Acknowledgements
About the Author

Introduction: The British Isles and the British Empire in 1688
The Land and Its People
Overseas Colonies
A Great Chain of Being
The Sectarian Divide
Politics
A Place in Time: Liverpool, Second City of Empire

Chapter 1: The Glorious Revolution and the Creation of "Britain," 1688-1707
The Glorious Revolution
The Revolutionary Settlement and the Financial Revolution
The Act of Union, 1707
A "United" Kingdom?
A Place in Time: The Glorious Revolution in Liverpool

Chapter 2: Consolidating the Kingdom and the Empire, 1707-1763
The War of the Spanish Succession and the Advent of the Hanoverian Kings
The Rising of 1715
The South Sea Bubble
Slavery and the Slave Trade
The Robinocracy
World War and Empire
A Place in Time: Liverpool and the Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745

Chapter 3: Economic and Intellectual Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century
The Demographic and Agricultural Revolutions
Early Industrialization
The Commercial Revolution
The Enlightenment: The Public Sphere
The Enlightenment: The Domestic Sphere
Overseas Scientific Discoveries
A Place in Time: Liverpool's "African Trade"

Chapter 4: Politics and Imperial Turns, 1760-1789
Popular Politics and the Rise of the Middling Classes
Gender, Politics, and Religious Culture
The Revoult of the American Colonies
The Anti-Slavery Movement
The Gordon Riots
Turning to India
A Place in Time: The Zong Murders: Prelude to Abolition

Chapter 5: Revolution, War, and Reaction, 1789-1820
The French Revolution
Women and Work
Malthus and More: Discipline and Domesticity
Rebellion in Ireland
Australia
Sierra Leone
Postwar Depression
A Place in Time: Liverpool and the Wars of the French Revolution

Chapter 6: The Age of Reform, 1820-1848
Industrialization and Social Change
Urbanization and Its Discontents
Political Reform
A Place in Time: The First Passenger Railway

Chapter 7: "Liberal Empire," 1823-1873
"Liberal" Empire
The White Colonies of Settlement
A Place in Time: The Opium Wars

Chapter 8: Nation and Empire, Citizens and Subjects, 1848-1873
The Celtic "Nations"
The Racial Contours of Citizenship and "Subjecthood"
The Reform Act of 1867
The Women's Movement, 1850-1873
A Place in Time: The Liverpool-Irish

Chapter 9: New Politics, New Imperialism
The Second Industrial Revolution
Mass Society and Mass Politics
New Imperialism
A Place in Time: Liverpool Blacks

Chapter 10: The Crises of the Fin de Siècle, 1899-1914
The South African War
Race Degeneration and a Revolution in Government
Labor Disputes and the Militant Women's Suffrage Movement
The Coming of the Great War
A Place in Time: Militants in Liverpool

Chapter 11: The Great War and the "Peace," 1914-1922
The Battles
Trench Warfare
The War at Home
The Easter Rebellion
Political Reverberations
A War of Empire
The Peace
Revolts Against British Rule
A Place in Time: The Pals' Brigade

Chapter 12: Politics and Empire in Interwar Britain, 1919-1935
Ireland: "Flying Columns" and Black and Tans
Strikes and the Fear of Revolution
Race riots
Politics
The General Strike
Changes in the Dominions
Women, Work, and Equal Enfranchisement
Depression, Disillusion, and National Crisis
Colonial Developments
A Place in Time: Race Riots

Chapter 13: Appeasement, World War, and the Establishment of the Welfare State, 1935-1962
The Fascist Challenge
An Imperial War in Europe
The War in the Pacific
The Home Front
The Color Bar
The Beveridge Report and the Postwar Welfare State
The Impact of Reforms
A Place in Time: The Second World War in Liverpool

Chapter 14: The Shock of the New: Decolonization and the Creation of a New Society, 1947-1996
Decolonization
The Permissive Society
The "Troubles"
Thatcherism
A Place in Time: The Toxteth Riots

Chapter 15: The Make-Up of Britain, 1997-2015
The Britain of Tony Blair
A Place in Time: Identities and Traditions at the Liverpool Football Club
Devolution in Scotland and Wales
Peace in Northern Ireland
A Multicultural Society
The Break-Up of Britain

Appendix A: Monarchs of Great Britain
Appendix B: Prime Ministers of Great Britain
Credits
Index