The English Nation: The Great Myth

This is a controversial and thought-provoking work, resulting from detailed research, which challenges the very idea of "England" and what it means to be English. The author has examined the origins of the sense of English identity that persists today and in this book argues a new perspective on how it came about. Many leaders have recognized the crucial importance of history in the construction of national identity. Hitler provides an extreme example of this in the 20th century. The possibility that the process of historical reinterpretation attempted in Germany may also have taken place centuries before in England has not, however, until the publication of this work, been addressed. Jones' scholarly investigations reveal that during the reign of Henry VIII a false view of the English past was created in order to promote England as a sovereign and independent nation state. It is this view of England's past that became so embedded in the nation's collective memory that it became one of the most powerful influences at work on English outlook and behaviour from then until now. While the techniques associated with this process of mass deception have become more familiar to us in the modern world, the legacy of their effects is sometimes less clear. Jones identifies this legacy and argues that a deliberately conceived misunderstanding of their past made the English forget that they were Europeans and created a narrowly xenophobic outlook. With the loss of Empire and concern over Europe, modern England is in search of a new role. This study provides the broad historical perspective within which England could recover its true historical identity, with its associated beliefs and values, now that the new millenium has arrived.

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