The English Nation [Paperback]

Edwin Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2000

This work challenges the very idea of England and what it means to be English. Dr. Jones has examined the origins of the sense of English identity that persists today and this book reveals a new perspective on how it came about. Many leaders have recognized the importance of history in the construction of a national identity. Dr. Jones reveals that during the reign of Henry VIII a false view of the English past was created in order to promote England as a sovereign and independent nation state. This view of England's past became one of the most powerful influences at work on English outlook and behavior. While the techniques associated with this process of mass deception have become more familiar, the legacy of their effects is sometimes less clear. Dr. Jones identifies this legacy and argues that a deliberately-conceived misunderstanding of their past made the English forget that they were Europeans and created a narrowly xenophobic outlook.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edwin Jones held a research fellowship at the University of Cambridge, before embarking on a long and successful career in education, including thirty years as a headteacher of a comprehensive school in South Wales. He lives in Swansea. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 347 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Publishing (June 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750925191
• ISBN-13: 978-0750925198
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,902,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A New Myth, April 1, 2010

By 

Stephanie A. Mann (Wichita, KS USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: English Nation (Paperback)

(2 stars=I don't like it; 3 stars=It's okay; 4 stars=I like it)
I selected the three star rating because it balances my reaction to this book: Edwin Jones has written an excellent examination of the Whig mythology of English History first by identifying where it all began (with Thomas Cromwell's new version of English History in explanation of the acts of the "Reformation Parliament" of Henry VIII), then by tracing the legacy of that historical revision and its hold on the ordinary person in England. He analyses the historical method that supported this Whig mythology: relying on previous works without any analysis of primary sources; sustained anti-catholicism and willfull ignorance of the Medieval era; nationalistic and Protestant exceptionalism--all expressed in the works of John Foxe, Gilbert Burnet, Edward Coke, and others. During the Enlightenment era, David Hume maintained everything but the Protestant exceptionalism in his secular philosophical History of England, because he was sceptical about religion.
Jones' great hero is Father John Lingard who in the nineteenth century began to apply modern historical methods of finding primary sources and not just relying on what Cromwell, Foxe, Burnet or others said. He used primary sources obtained in England and on the Continent to reveal the true course of events previous historians had ignored. Jones finally examines the last great historians of the Whig tradition (Macaulay and Trevelyan and others) before turning to the revisionist historians writing about the English Reformation (Duffy, Scarisbrick, Haigh, etc). Their works, he notes, have not gone far beyond an academic audience to influence popular thought about the Reformation and other events.
The text even so far is marred by repetition and typographical errors: the same work by R.W. Southern is mentioned half a dozen times with no great advance in argument. Christopher Haigh's name is spelled Haig, etc.
Then the Epilogue and the Afterword are tacked on and Jones ends the book with a rant against the USA, overflowing praise of Tony Blair, and predictions of the great coming world order under the European Union.
I learned a great deal from his examination of the Whig theory of English History; I could have done without his now dated examination of the new mythology of a new world order and the greatness of the Eurodollar.