Product Description

The future of the United Kingdom is an increasingly vexed question. This book traces the roots of the issue to the middle ages, when English power and control came to extend to the whole of the British Isles. By 1300 it looked as if Edward I was in control of virtually the whole of the British Isles. Ireland, Scotland, and Wales had, in different degrees, been subjugated to his authority; contemporaries were even comparing him with King Arthur. This was the culmination of a remarkable English advance into the outer zones of the British Isles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The advance was not only a matter of military power, political control, and governmental and legal institutions; it also involved extensive colonization and the absorption of these outer zones into the economic and cultural orbit of an England-dominated world. What remained to be seen was how stable (especially in Scotland and Ireland) was this English 'empire'; how far the northern and western parts of the British Isles could be absorbed into an English-centred polity and society; and to what extent did the early and self-confident development of English identity determine the relationships between England and the rest of the British Isles. The answers to those questions would be shaped by the past of the country that was England; the answers would also cast their shadow over the future of the British Isles for centuries to come.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #880818 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

History
"Stimulating and satisfying book that will prompt much useful debate."

Review
Davies's book presents a thoroughly coherent and convincing portrait of this significant period in the history of Britain and Ireland ... an illuminating study. (Welsh History Review )

New and important evidence is marshalled to support Davies's thesis in every essay, and wisdom drips from every page ... Davies's omnicompetence in handling primary texts of all genres is surpassed only by quite the most encyclopaedic familiarity with a monumental corpus of secondary writing ... Nothing one is likely to read on this subject again in one's lifetime can surpass Rees Davies's The First English Empire. (English Historical Review )

Another brilliant book ... the quality of thought and exposition here cannot be over-stated ... we are treated to a succession of persuasive challenges to traditional historiographical perspectives, and of tempting invitations to look again at the medieval history of these islands ... This is a book to which one can return again and again for new ideas and inspiration. (Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History )

Stimulating and satisfying book that will prompt much useful debate. (History )

A thoughtful analysis of Anglo-Norman kingship and its insatiably predatory aristocracy in their competition with native princes and with each other for control of great swaths of the British Isles. (R.R.Davies, Times Literary Supplement )

A lively account of English Medieval History ... an exciting read. (Church Times )

This is a book to which one can return again and again for new ideas and inspiration. (Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History )

Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History
"This is a book to which one can return again and again for new ideas and inspiration."