A Useful History of Britain: The Politics of Getting Things Done

Cover
A Useful History of Britain: The Politics of Getting Things Done
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: From Stonehenge to Global Britain: The History of Political Life on Britain
1: Political Life: Power Over Our World, Power Over Each Other
	The Roman Empire: Collective Institutions and Differential Power
	Private Property and the Public Good
	Public Works
	Collective and Differential Power: The EU
2: Mobilizing Ideas and the Uses of Collective
Institutions
	Ideas and Power Relations
		Inheritance, Tenure, and the ‘Feudal Compact’
	Shaping the Uses of Collective Power
		Roman Ideas and Their Legacy
		Christianity and Anglo-SaxonGovernment
		The Rise of Political Arithmetic and Political Economy
	Conflict and Resistance
		Church and State: Religious and Political Obligations
		Diverse and Contested Ideas
3: Material Conditions and the Uses of Collective
Institutions
	Economic Change and Political Complexity
		Hunter-Gatherers,Farmers, and Traders
		The Slave Trade: How Collective Power Shapes Economic Exchange
		Industrialization and Global Interdependence
		Inter-StateCooperation: From Westphalia to the EU
	Environmental Change and Collective Institutions
	Government and Technological Change
4: Organizational Capacity and the Changing Limits of the Possible
	Collective Institutions, Famine, and Disease
	Collective Institutions and Economic Change: The Romans
		The regulation of credit
	Path Dependency
5: Geographies of Collective Institutions and
Identities: Which Groups Take Action for
What Purposes?
	Local and Regional Structures
	Dynastic and National Structures
	Supra-nationaland Inter-State Organizations
	Institutions, People, and Political Identities
6: Political Inclusion: Who Makes Things Happen?
	Inequality: Differential Power
	Accessing the Power of Ideas
		Appropriation
		Triangulation
		Rejection, Subversion, and Imagining Alternative Worlds
	Accessing the Power of Collective Institutions
		Lobbying and Petitioning
		Triangulation: Using the Law and the Church
		Alternatives to Existing Institutions: Direct Action
		Informal Spaces, Alternate Worlds, Making a Life
	Historicizing Agency: Representation, Deliberation, Administration
7: Change Over Time: Phases in the History of
Political Life
	The Neolithic to the Iron Age: Material History, Identity, and Collective Power
	55 BCE to 950: The Impact of Rome, Christianity, and the Vikings
	Dynastic Kingdoms I: 950–1300
	Dynastic Kingdoms II: 1300–1650
	A Hybrid State with a Maritime Empire: 1650–1800
	Industrial Britain, 1800–1945
	Post-War, 1945–2018
Conclusion: Globalizing the British Past: Parallel and Shared Histories
	National History in a Global Age
	A History for Use
Notes
	Introduction
	Chapter 1
	Chapter 2
	Chapter 3
	Chapter 4
	Chapter 5
	Chapter 6
	Chapter 7
	Conclusion
Picture Credits
Further Reading
	Introduction
	Chapter 1
	Chapter 2
	Chapter 3
	Chapter 4
	Chapter 5
	Chapter 6
	Chapter 7
	Conclusion
Index