Another great @VPL #Britannia #library #SummerReadingClub party #ProudTrustees w/ @amandabcard

And fair low res people ... til we meet again! #britannia #legendary #hotel #birmingham

The traditional view of the Scottish nation holds that it first arose during the Wars of Independence from England in the 13thC & 14thC. Although Scotland was absorbed into Britain in 1707, Scottish identity is supposed to have remained alive through separate institutions of religion, education, and the legal system. Davidson argues otherwise. The Scottish nation did not exist before 1707. The Scottish national consciousness we know today was not preserved by institutions carried over from the pre-Union period, but arose after and as a result of the Union, for only then were the material obstacles to nationhood – most importantly the Highland/Lowland divide – overcome. This Scottish nation was constructed simultaneously with and as part of the British nation, and the 18thC Scottish bourgeoisie were at the forefront of constructing both. The majority of Scots entered the Industrial Revolution with a dual national consciousness, but only one nationalism, which was British. The Scottish nationalism which arose in Scotland during the 20thC is therefore not a revival of a pre-Union nationalism after 300 years, but an entirely new formation. -- Customer review - Davidson refutes Linda Colley's idealist thesis that Protestantism, Francophobia, monarchism and empire formed the British nation. The first three of these were ideas, present, yes, but not formative. Empire was external to Britain, and so it was never part of people's experience of becoming British or Scottish. Scotland was a full partner, not a junior partner in the British (not English) Empire, unlike Ireland. The experience of becoming the workshop of the world formed Britain as a nation, creating our culture and identity. Industry, making things, and organising in our Britain-wide trade unions (which Davidson barely mentions) made us British. -- not on kindle

Briteissä kapitalismia köyhille, sosialismia rikkaille

OLIVER J. W. COX - University College, Oxford -- The words and music of ‘Rule, Britannia!’ are synonymous with the expansionist, triumphalist, and imperialist Britain symbolized by fluttering Union Jacks on the Last Night of the Proms. This article explores the cultural and political contexts of the first performance of this important national cultural artefact as the finale of Alfred: a masque to suggest that this opening night served a very different purpose. The first audience was a court in exile from the metropolitan heart of London, popular amongst the general public, but without any prospects of government. Two of the most important members of this group of peers, politicians, poets and a prince had recently died, and with them any cohesive identity. Alfred is both a desperate plea for unity, a rallying cry which forcefully restated the key tenets of this group's identity, and a delayed expression of patriotic celebration occasioned by Admiral Vernon's capture of Portobello. Through addressing this performance, this article makes an important contribution to our understanding of Hanoverian political culture and highlights the continuing impact of Anglo-Saxon England on mid-eighteenth-century Britain. -* For comments and advice on earlier versions of my argument, I am grateful to Dr Hannah Smith and Dr Geoffrey Tyack. - Thanks are also due to John and Virginia Murray who ensured archival work at 50 Albemarle Street was always a pleasure.

King's College London -- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X14000119, Published online: 08 May 2014 -- This article examines the figure of Boudica (or Boadicea), with a specific focus on Thomas Thornycroft's Westminster Bridge statue, and on the work of the seventeenth-century antiquary, Edmund Bolton. By synthesizing historiography which investigates the idea of ‘historical culture’ in the modern and early modern periods, this article attempts to bridge chronological and generic divisions which exist in the study of the history of history. It argues that to fully understand the genealogy of popular historical ideas like Boudica, it is imperative that historians of such subjects take a longue-durée approach that situates individual artists and writers, and the historical-cultural works they produce, within their broader political, cultural, and social contexts while simultaneously viewing these works as part of a long, discursive process by which the past is successively reinterpreted. As a consequence, this article eschews an analysis of Boudica which labels her an ‘imperial icon’ for Victorian Britons, and argues that the relationship between contemporary context and the re-imagined past is not as straightforward as it might initially appear. -- paywall -- may be interesting for development of Britannia imagery relevant to Bolingbroke and Patriots

It is all too easy for customers, regulators and politicians to be lulled into a false sense of security by bank management that is determined to hide the real state of affairs. The Co-Op Bank to my mind has systematically deceived everybody. It is unfortunate that a bank which commands such loyalty among its customer base should now have such a tarnished image. I hope that the new team cleans up its act. Because if it does not, it does not deserve the support of its customers. And the UK's banking sector would be the poorer for the loss of such a distinctive brand.

british rotherham education culture britannia great britain uk sheffield Gaming events Festivals and celebrations Video games (Gaming) gaming