Untied Kingdom
A Global History of the End of Britain

A panoramic history uncovering the demise of Britishness as a global civic idea since the Second World War.

Stuart Ward (Author)

9781107145993, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 February 2023

550 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 4 cm, 1.11 kg

'This new history of the transformation of Britain's place in the world casts the Union's contemporary crisis in a whole new light by uncovering the long-term demise of British allegiances around the world, and forging connections between the end of empire and the break-up of Britain.' The Bookseller

How did Britain cease to be global? In Untied Kingdom, Stuart Ward tells the panoramic history of the end of Britain, tracing the ways in which Britishness has been imagined, experienced, disputed and ultimately discarded across the globe since the end of the Second World War. From Indian independence, West Indian immigration and African decolonization to the Suez Crisis and the Falklands War, he uncovers the demise of Britishness as a global civic idea and its impact on communities across the globe. He also shows the consequences of this diminished 'global reach' in Britain itself, from the Troubles in Northern Ireland to resurgent Englishness and the startling success of separatist political agendas in Scotland and Wales. Untied Kingdom puts the contemporary travails of the Union for the first time in their full global perspective as part of the much larger story of the progressive rollback of Britain's imaginative frontiers.

List of Figures
Introduction
Part I. Prologue: 1. Offshore Formations: The Unbearable Bandwidth of Being British
2. The Limits of Location: Greater Britain
3. 'British with a Small 'b'': The Impress of Internationalism
Part II. Registers: 4. 'We Mustn't Mention the Empire': The British Name
5. Homes Away from Home: The Houses of Windsor
6. Imperial Welcome: The British Subject
7. The Wind Changes: Human Rights after Smuts
8. Pride in the Goods: The Moral Economy of the Common Market
9. Uncommon Law: The Reach of British Justice
Part III. Repercussions: 10. East and West of Suez: Receding Frontiers
11. Backing Little Britain: Distempers
12. The Last Refuge: Coming Home to England
13. 'British We are and British We Stay': Troubles
14. Stop the World: Celtic Departures
15. 'Cosmologies of Our Own': After Britain
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], British & Irish history [HBJD1]