The British Tanks 1915 1919

It is commonplace to assume that the twentieth-century British economy has failed, falling from the world's richest industrial country in 1900 to one of the poorest nations of Western Europe in 2000. Manufacturing is inevitably the centre of this failure: British industrial managers cannot organise the proverbial 'knees-up' in a brewery; British workers are idle and greedy; its financial system is uniquely geared to the short term interests of the City rather than of manufacturing; its economic policies areperverse for industry; and its culture is fundamentally anti-industrial. There is a grain of truth in each of these statements, but only a grain.

This pioneering book seeks to transcend the limitations of separate English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh histories by taking the archipelago made up of the islands of Britain and Ireland as a single unit of study. There has been little attempt hitherto to study the history of the 'Atlantic archipelago' as a coherent entity, even for the period during which there was a single ruler of both Great Britain and Ireland. This book begins with the onset of the intellectual, religious, political, cultural and dynastic developments that were to bring teh Scottish house of Stewart to the thrones of England (incorporating the ancient principality of Wales), Ireland, (a kingdom created in 1541 as a dependency of the English Crown) and to full control of Scotland itself and of its islands.

“Stephen Glynn is the authority on sport in British cinema, and The British Boxing Film is a very welcome addition to his previous surveys of the people’s game and the sport of kings. Glynn makes a highly persuasive case for the boxing picture as a site of significant cultural interest, especially through its engagement with class and gender politics. As relevant for social historians of sport as for film studies, The British Boxing Film is an undisputed knock-out winner.”

“Stephen Glynn is the authority on sport in British cinema, and The British Boxing Film is a very welcome addition to his previous surveys of the people’s game and the sport of kings. Glynn makes a highly persuasive case for the boxing picture as a site of significant cultural interest, especially through its engagement with class and gender politics. As relevant for social historians of sport as for film studies, The British Boxing Film is an undisputed knock-out winner.”