Many historians view early modern England as a time of increasing isolation and xenophobia. Claydon (history, University of Wales, Bangor) takes exception to this assumption. He argues that the English saw themselves as part of the international Protestant Reformation and also of Christendom as a whole. He notes the popularity of travel guides in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century and how they formed an English sense of place in Europe. He then gets into the thornier issues of the internal constitutional struggles in England and the external wars that led to the establishment of the British Empire. Claydon feels that religious identity was a key factor in the relationship of England and the other European countries, without it they would never have preferred a German-speaking Protestant over a Catholic Stuart as king. This theory is interesting and controversial and should provoke lively debate in the academic community. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
This study re-interprets English history and national identity in the century after the civil war.
Wide-ranging and original re-interpretation of English history and national identity during the vital century (1660-1760) in which the country emerged as the leading world power and developed its peculiarly free political culture. Disputing the insular and xenophobic image of the English in the period, and denying that this was an age of secularisation, Tony Claydon demonstrates instead the country's active participation in a 'protestant international' and its deep attachment to a European 'Christendom'. He shows how these outward-looking identities shaped key developments by generating a profound sense of duty to God's foreign faithful. The English built a world-beating state by intervening abroad to defend Christendom and the reformation, and their politics were forged as they debated different understandings of these international entities. England may have diverged from continental norms in this period but this book shows that it did so because of its intense religious engagement with that continent.
