An ambitious and engaging narrative survey that charts the history of the world from a political perspective, from 1937 to the post-9/11 era. Providing a wide-ranging assessment of global interactions in peace and war since World War II, Robbins connects the crises, conflicts and accommodations that have brought us to the still-troubled present.

Keith Robbins provides an excellent introduction to Winston Churchill's rise to power and a vivid picture of the political landscapes through which he moved.

Winston Churchill's rise to power was dramatic—brilliant, flawed and distrusted in his early career, he rose to become a national hero in the dark days of the Second World War. Yet after the war, Churchill was ousted from power and by 1955, eclipsed by the USA and USSR, Britain seemed to be losing everything Churchill had sought to preserve. This book outlines his career and uncovers what made possible Churchill's leading role in national and world affairs.

The aspirations of democracy and the requirements of diplomacy have always coexisted uneasily. The politicians discussed in this book, in particular the appreciation of the careers of John Bright and James Bryce, reflect obliquely or directly on the problems of politicians who seek the 'high moral ground' either in domestic or international politics. There is also a discussion of the relationship between politicians and the press, as well as of the difficult link between cultural and political assumptions on the one hand and the facts of economic performance on the other.

This is a timely exploration of national identity in Great Britain over nine hundred years of history. Our attitudes to the nation state are changing - national assemblies in Scotland and Wales and growing pressures for regional assemblies. In his vigorous new survey, Professor Robbins provides the background to these changing attitudes. He considers the development as well as the possible disintegration of the sense of "Britishness" among the inhabitants of Britain and investigates how - and why - they have preserved their own national and regional identities across several centuries of co-existence. Keith Robbins is Vice Chancellor of the University of Wales Lampeter. Among his many books, Longman has also published his highly successful study The Eclipse of a Great Power: Modern Britain 1870-1992 (Second Edition 1994). He is also General Editor of Longman's famous series ofProfiles in Power, with over 20 titles already in print and many more in preparation.

These essays can all be said, in one way or another, to be concerned with the 'Identity of Britain' in the modern period. In the first group, the author considers how British historians have themselves reflected and shaped the national understanding of the British past. He discusses the implications of such debates for the present. Have we reached the end of British history in the age of European integration? In the second group, attention is concentrated on beliefs and values, ranging from aspects of Edwardian religion to the problems posed for the churches by the rise of Nazism. This section also includes a discussion of religion and national identity in modern Britain. Another essay takes 1940 as its reference point for a searching enquiry into contemporary understandings of 'Christian Civilisation'. What kind of Christian country was Britain? The third group, reflecting the author's teaching experience in England, Scotland and Wales, approaches the puzzling problem of the nature of 'Britishness' from distinct angles.

This is a timely exploration of national identity in Great Britain over nine hundred years of history. Our attitudes to the nation state are changing - national assemblies in Scotland and Wales and growing pressures for regional assemblies. In his vigorous new survey, Professor Robbins provides the background to these changing attitudes. He considers the development as well as the possible disintegration of the sense of "Britishness" among the inhabitants of Britain and investigates how - and why - they have preserved their own national and regional identities across several centuries of co-existence.
Keith Robbins is Vice Chancellor of the University of Wales Lampeter. Among his many books, Longman has also published his highly successful study "The Eclipse of a Great Power: Modern Britain 1870-1992" (Second Edition 1994). He is also General Editor of Longman's famous series of"Profiles in Power, " with over 20 titles already in print and many more in preparation.

Covers both the expansion and the decline of the British Empire and the reasons behind this sudden eclipse in power.

An updated second edition of a book first published in 1983. Originally stopping in 1975, the book now goes through to 1992, and includes the entire span of the Thatcher years, and the emergence of Europe as a central factor on the national agenda. The additional section brings together both an up-to-date assessment of the recent past and continues the enduring themes explored in the century covered in the first edition.

The story of Oxford University Press spans five centuries of printing and publishing. Beginning with the first presses set up in Oxford in the fifteenth century and the later establishment of a university printing house, it leads through the publication of bibles, scholarly works, and the Oxford English Dictionary, to a twentieth-century expansion that created the largest university press in the world, playing a part in research, education, and language learning in more than 50 countries. With access to extensive archives, the four-volume History of OUP traces the impact of long-term changes in printing technology and the business of publishing. It also considers the effects of wider trends in education, reading, and scholarship, in international trade and the spreading influence of the English language, and in cultural and social history - both in Oxford and through its presence around the world. In the decades after 1970 Oxford University Press met new challenges but also a period of unprecedented growth. In this concluding volume, Keith Robbins and 21 expert contributors assess OUP's changing structure, its academic mission, and its business operations through years of economic turbulence and continuous technological change. The Press repositioned itself after 1970: it brought its London Business to Oxford, closed its Printing House, and rapidly developed new publishing for English language teaching in regions far beyond its traditional markets. Yet in an increasingly competitive worldwide industry, OUP remained the department of a major British university, sharing its commitment to excellence in scholarship and education. The resulting opportunities and sometimes tensions are traced here through detailed consideration of OUP's business decisions, the vast range of its publications, and the dynamic role of its overseas offices. Concluding in 2004 with new forms of digital publishing, The History of OUP sheds new light on the cultural, educational, and business life of the English-speaking world in the late twentieth century.

The "British Isles" entered the 20th century as a single state, "Great Britain and Ireland", with a "British Empire" greater in extent and larger in population than the world had ever seen. The first 50 years saw vast change. At home, the separate path of Ireland became steadily more clear-cut. Abroad, the "Dominions" increasingly saw themselves and acted as independent entities and, with the withdrawal from the Indian sub-continent in 1947, the writing was on the wall for the British Empire/Commonwealth Not unrelated to these changes was the major British involvement in two world wars. This volume presents a very different country in 1951 from what it had been in 1901. The chapters by different authors focus on politics, economics, society, wars, and foreign policy to emphasize the interconnectedness of all these developments. The expositions reflect on the "the British Way and Purpose' from different perspectives.

The British Isles entered the twentieth century as a single state, 'Great Britain and Ireland,' with a 'British Empire' greater in extent and larger in population than the world had ever seen. The first fifty years of the new century saw vast change both at home and abroad. Each chapter in this volume focuses on a specific aspect of the rapidly changing historical landscape of British history in this period: politics, economics, society, culture, the wars, and foreign policy, combining specialist attention to each area with an emphasis on their interconnectedness.

Keith Robbins' accessible and stimulating account of world history since 1945 provides a framework for making sense of the political and social developments of the period. The underlying theme of the book is the tension between the world conceived as a unity and as a diversity. From this perspective, the author discusses the impulse towards globalization in the aftermath of the Second World War, the divisions inherent in the Cold War, and the shifting allegiances and conflicts in the decades which followed.

Keith Robbins, building on his previous writing on the modern history of the interlocking but distinctive territories of the British Isles, takes a wide-ranging, innovative and challenging look at the twentieth-century history of the main bodies, at once national and universal, which have collectively constituted the Christian Church. The protracted search for elusive unity is emphasized. Particular beliefs, attitudes, policies and structures are located in their social and cultural contexts. Prominent individuals, clerical and lay, are scrutinized. Religion and politics intermingle, highlighting, for churches and states, fundamental questions of identity and allegiance, of public and private values, in a century of ideological conflict, violent confrontation (in Ireland), two world wars and protracted Cold War.
The massive change experienced by the countries and people of the Isles since 1900 has encompassed shifting relationships between England, Ireland (and Northern Ireland), Scotland and Wales, the end of the British Empire, the emergence of a new Europe and, latterly, major immigration of adherents of Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and other faiths from outside Europe: developments scarcely conceivable at the outset. Such a broad contextual perspective provides an essential background to understanding the puzzling ambiguities evident both in secularization and enduring Christian faith. Robbins provides a cogent and compelling overview of this turbulent century for the churches of the Isles.

Keith Robbins, building on his previous writing on the modern history of the interlocking but distinctive territories of the British Isles, takes a wide-ranging, innovative and challenging look at the twentieth-century history of the main bodies, at once national and universal, which have collectively constituted the Christian Church. The protracted search for elusive unity is emphasized. Particular beliefs, attitudes, policies and structures are located in their social and cultural contexts. Prominent individuals, clerical and lay, are scrutinized. Religion and politics intermingle, highlighting, for churches and states, fundamental questions of identity and allegiance, of public and private values, in a century of ideological conflict, violent confrontation (in Ireland), two world wars, and protracted Cold War.
The massive change experienced by the countries and people of the Isles since 1900 has encompassed shifting relationships between England, Ireland (and Northern Ireland), Scotland, and Wales, the end of the British Empire, the emergence of a new Europe and, latterly, major immigration of adherents of Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and other faiths from outside Europe: developments scarcely conceivable at the outset. Such a broad contextual perspective provides an essential background to understanding the puzzling ambiguities evident both in secularization and enduring Christian faith. Robbins provides a cogent and compelling overview of this turbulent century for the churches of the Isles.

Containing over 27,000 entries, this unique reference will be absolutely essential for anyone with an interest in Britain in the twentieth century. Accessibly arranged by theme, with introductions to each chapter, a large range of topics is covered. The volume offers an invaluable guided tour by a leading historian of the bewildering plethora of publications on twentieth-century Britain.

The tragic slaughter of the trenches is imprinted on modern memory; but it is more difficult to grasp the wider extent and significance of the First World War. This book gives a clear chronological account of the campaigns on the Western and Eastern Fronts and then moves on to investigate areas that many studies ignore - the war poets, the diplomacy of war aims and peace moves, logistics, and 'the experience of the war'. It was soon seen that `war has nothing to do with chivalry any more', but it was harder to say what the First World War was fought for, or what the combatants gained. Professor Robbins approaches this problem from two angles: he analyses the complex political and diplomatic background to the alliances between the Great Powers; he also explores the mood of Europe between 1914 and 1918 by examining the experience of war from the different standpoints of the nations and individuals caught up in it.

The elite and their social role is a question of central importance in European history. This is confirmed not least by the growing public interest in this topic. The history of Great Britain and Germany has shown in quite different ways how the elites have faced the challenges of the modern age. On 13 and 14 September 2002 the 21st conference of the Prince Albert Society took place, where historical and current aspects of the history of the elite, their survival strategies, their failures and their resistance were considered from both British and German perspectives. "Birth or Talent?," Volume 21 of the Prince Albert Studies documents the contributions that were presented at this conference.

Twelve historians from Great Britain, Germany and the United States investigate over a huge time span -- from the 16th century to the present -- the elite in the church, military, economy, diplomacy and in the educational sector. The strong current interest in this topic is also evident in the panel discussion. Starting with the historical relationships between both countries, the growing similarity in living conditions, not only in the economy but above all in the education system, is discussed.

This is a study of two conflicting trends in nineteenth-century Britain: the promotion of integration and unity through improved communications and mobility, and the commitment to preserve regional diversity (but without losing political union), particularly on the part of the Welsh and the Scots. The various aspects which served to unite or divide the regions are examined: the church and religious belief, eating and drinking habits, the political system, commercial development, education, language, literature and music. The author concludes that there was a "British" nation which was consolidated during the century. Although not uniform in character, it held together through the supreme test of World War I under the political guidance of a Welshman whose first language was not English and the spiritual guidance of an Archbishop of Canterbury who was a Scot.

An ambitious and engaging narrative survey that charts the history of the world from a political perspective, from 1937 to the post-9/11 era. Providing a wide-ranging assessment of global interactions in peace and war since World War II, Robbins connects the crises, conflicts and accommodations that have brought us to the still-troubled present.

At critical moments, Britain has played a crucial part in the political evolution of modern Europe, yet its stance has often been ambivalent: sometimes glad to be part of 'European civilization' but at other times rejoicing in the blessings of insularity. This book breaks new ground in tracing the evolving and contested understandings both of Britain and of Europe on the part of politicians, diplomats, historians, and travelers in the centuries since the French Revolution. It is at once a discussion of the foreign policy of the United Kingdom--an independent sovereign state in its relations with 'the continent' during its imperial hey-day and after--and a study of the historical perceptions, experiences and assumptions that preceded, and now accompany and complicate its participation in the European Union. The debate over Britain and Europe has long lacked depth and this book supplies it