Islands and Empire: A History of Modern Britain situates the United Kingdom within a local, European, and global historical context. It examines the forces of imperialism, emphasizing the dynamic interaction between the colonies and the metropole. The book addresses questions of race, ethnicity, class, and gender and gives voice to the diversity of people who shaped and were shaped by Britain and its empire. The text is divided into three key time periods: 1688 - 1815; 1815 - 1914; and 1914 - 2021. Part One examines the historical trends and patterns that began with the Revolution of 1688 and continued through the Napoleonic Wars. Its chapters explore the demographics of the British Isles, the creation of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, the beliefs, ideas, and attitudes that comprised the eighteenth-century world view, the development of political structures, the expansion of the empire, and the accompanying economic transformations. Covering the time period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the start of World War I, Part Two discusses population growth, evolving gender roles, the Industrial Revolution and urbanization, and political and social reform. It also examines the further expansion of the British Empire, settler colonialism, and the relationships between Britain and its overseas possessions. Part Three introduces readers to contemporary Britain, an era that saw two world wars, and the dissolution of the empire. It examines the emergence of contemporary British society, economics, diplomacy, art, culture, and post-colonial life and ideas. Islands and Empire provides students with a comprehensive, engaging, and complete overview of modern British and imperial history eminently suited to introductory courses.

This book argues against the mainstream view that we should treat propositional attitudes as internal states, suggesting that to treat beliefs as things of certain sort (i.e. to reify them) is a mistake. The reificatory view faces several problems that the non-reificatory view avoids, and it is argued the non-reificatory view is more faithful to the everyday concept of belief. There are several major reasons why it might be thought that a reificatory approach to mental states is nevertheless unavoidable, but this book attempts to show that none of these reasons is at all convincing; in each case, the evidence is consistent with a non-reificatory view. Having argued that the popularity of the reificatory view is unjustified, the author examines history of psychology and philosophy of mind, and the structure of psychological language, in order to show that this popularity is quite understandable, but mistaken nonetheless.

This book argues against the mainstream view that we should treat propositional attitudes as internal states, suggesting that to treat beliefs as things of certain sort (i.e. to reify them) is a mistake. The reificatory view faces several problems that the non-reificatory view avoids, and it is argued the non-reificatory view is more faithful to the everyday concept of belief. There are several major reasons why it might be thought that a reificatory approach to mental states is nevertheless unavoidable, but this book attempts to show that none of these reasons is at all convincing; in each case, the evidence is consistent with a non-reificatory view. Having argued that the popularity of the reificatory view is unjustified, the author examines history of psychology and philosophy of mind, and the structure of psychological language, in order to show that this popularity is quite understandable, but mistaken nonetheless.