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Great Britain Essay

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Ever since its creation in 1707, the United Kingdom of Great Britain has been a powerful union of many different nations and identities, including the English, Scots, Welsh and later Irish. From the Middle Ages until the Second World War this union had not only fortified its domestic political power but also expanded its reign across the entire world, resulting in the world’s largest and mightiest empire, the British Empire. This great achievement of the union was mainly due to the remarkable sense of unity of its people who considered themselves primarily as British and secondly as Scots, Welsh or Irish. By the end of the Second World War, however, the domestic governance stability also threatened to collapse as many foreign colonies of …show more content…

According to Linda Colley (2003), national identities are, in a historical context, in general contingent and relational (cf. p. 275). They have, so to say, developed over time when being compared to “the other” and are not to be considered as fixed things. She argues that in the case of the English national identity it was not sooner than in the aftermath of the Second World War that the English started critically examining their own identity. This was during a period as other nations within the UK started demanding for more political independence by naming themselves as Scots, Welsh or even Irish. Anthropologically, Fox (2004) stresses that there are some unspoken rules which govern the behavior of the English and that these rules clearly distinguish them from other nations. Rules such as the good know English fair play, courtesy and humor that have evolved throughout time. Consequently, he suggests there is indeed such a thing as an English national identity which is mainly set on unwritten codes or rules of behavior in all the social layers. Others, like Robert Colls (2002), try to answer the emergence of the English national identity by stressing that the fundaments of the English national identity were already present and set during the 14th century. The main instrument which produced this English national identity was the law and above all the common law which all the

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