1066 and all that : A Memorable History of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates: Ce livre écrit par W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, et illustré par John Reynolds raconte l’histoire d’Angleterre. Le livre apparait pour la première fois sous forme de feuilleton dans le magazine Punch. Il est publié sous forme de livre par Methuen Publishing (en) en 1930. Simon Schama’s peasants’ revolt : La révolte des paysans a eu lieu en Grande-Bretagne en 1381, pendant la guerre de Cent Ans, et vu le soulèvement de plusieurs dizaines de milliers de paysans, revendiquant la fin du servage, prendre Londres.

Opium wars : Les guerres de l’opium sont des conflits motivés par des raisons commerciales qui opposèrent la Chine de la dynastie Qing (voulant interdire le commerce de l’opium sur son territoire) à plusieurs pays occidentaux (voulant le continuer) au XIX^e siècle.

• La première guerre de l’opium se déroula de 1839 à 1842 et opposa la Chine au Royaume-Uni ;
• La seconde guerre de l’opium se déroula de 1856 à 1860 et vit cette fois l’intervention de la France, des États-Unis et de la Russie aux côtés du Royaume-Uni. Le nom par lequel est désignée cette guerre s’explique dans la mesure où elle peut être considérée comme le prolongement de la première guerre de l’opium.

David Starkey’s rules of chivalry :  David Robert Starkey, CBE, FSA, né le 3 janvier 1945 à Kendal en Cumbrie, est un historien constitutionnel, et présentateur de radio et de télévision britannique. Il est un spécialiste de la dynastie des Tudor et de la Période Tudor.

Or is the Cambridge professor Richard Evans right to dismiss “rote learning of the national patriotic narrative” out of hand, in favour of studying “other cultures separated from us by time and space”?  Ou est-ce que le professeur de Cambridge, Richard Evans, a raison quand il rejete l’idée de “l’apprentissage par cœur du récit national et patriotique”  en faveur de l’étude “d’autres cultures séparés de nous par le temps et par l’espace”?

The answer is none of them as such. La réponse est qu’aucun d’entre eux en tant que tels.

The reason for learning history is not to hear stories but to follow themes that might help us understand the world about us. …n’est pas d’entendre des histoires mais de suivre des thèmes qui pourraient nous aider à comprendre le monde qui nous entoure.

Without history, politics is fumbling in the dark. When Margaret Thatcher imposed a poll tax on the Scots in 1989, she seemed blind to the history of such taxes – disastrously so. When the British tried to rule southern Iraq in 2003 and to drive the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2006, they also ignored history.

Sans l’histoire, la politique tâtonne dans le noir. Lorsque Margaret Thatcher a imposé le “Poll Tax” sur les Ecossais en 1989, elle semblait aveugle à l’histoire de ces taxes. Lorsque les Britanniques ont essayé de regner sur le sud de l’Irak en 2003 et à conduire les talibans d’Afghanistan en 2006, ils ont également ignoré l’histoire.

The story of the nation in which we live is not a stage set crowded with isolated tableaux: the Norman conquest followed by Henry VIII, Charles I, the Industrial Revolution and finally leaping to Hitler. Sturdy tales of slavery, gender oppression and the defeat of Germany yield anecdotes that may raise the reader’s blood pressure. But they are history neutered of argument, uncreative, essentially dumb. They may make us angry, but not wise. History must be continuous, building from cause to effect and reaching a crescendo in the present day.

Not yet translated (Coming soon!)

I have no doubt that England’s first empire – over the Celts – will fade in the 21st century. In 1920 Ireland had enough and most of it broke away, as eventually will Ulster. In 2000, Scotland and Wales began the same process. The reality is that these places have distinct histories of their own, as anyone knows who lives in them. As throughout Europe, provincial identities are acquiring political force. This is not good or bad, but inevitable. The same distinctiveness will apply to England. I have therefore sought to disinter England from the political homogeneity of Britishness.

The other thread is that of the distribution of power within England, between central authority and local consent. Almost all the great events of English history concern this struggle: Becket’s murder, Magna Carta, Henry VIII’s tyranny, the fight against the divinity of kings and the campaign for universal franchise. In each case, central power was pitted against church, baronage, parliament or people. A version of that struggle continues today in the argument over the future of the welfare state.

Running through this story is the primacy of money. From the Domesday Book to the present day, the obsession of England’s rulers was with war, first against the French and the Scots, then for an empire and then as guarantor of European and world peace. War requires money, and this was granted by taxpayers only in return for redress of grievances. Even Edward I, “hammer” of the Celts, wondered when taxes “paid to us out of liberality and goodwill … may in future become a servile obligation.” There had to be compromise or kings could not fight. The belligerence of England’s rulers was ironically the engine of early rule by consent.

In this story there was one overriding hero: parliament. Emerging from the early Saxon witans, parliament had by the 14th century already taken on the bicameral character it has today. It never lost its centrality in the constitution. It steered England through the agony of civil war. Under the Hanoverians, parliament and its “parties” took over the reins of government and was the cockpit for reform in 1832. Parliament, however “rotten” at times, never lost control of the argument. It was a creation of political genius.

These themes, like history itself, cannot be told spasmodically. Today’s debates over the electoral system and the reform of parliament are vacuous if not informed by previous ones. Britain’s ambivalent relations with Europe and its confused global policy remain opaque if they ignore the experience of Pitt, Palmerston, Salisbury and Churchill. The devolution process is absurd if typified by David Cameron’s “I will fight for the union with every fibre in my body.” And how can we grapple with the size and role of government without watching the state wax ever bigger over the centuries, to become a colossus in the 20th century?

I cannot see how any narrative can avoid starting at the beginning and running to the end, however hard it may seem to tell it that way. Reformers who have led history’s decline into “optionalism” in the school curriculum want it taught by dipping in and out, claiming that to follow events through dates is boring and hard. Yet ends come after beginnings. Causes precede effects. Time’s arrow flies through “one damned thing after another.” I am an unashamed chronologist.

Reformers also imply that England’s political evolution is only a partial reflection of its history – and neglects social, gender and cultural themes. But history must start with the framework of authority. The distribution of power within a state is its essence, as wielded by kings, generals, politicians and electorates. Their story has to start with the much-derided reigns, battles, statutes and elections. History without dates wanders aimlessly in a fog. It is chemistry without elements or physics without maths.

I have written a book that covers the main characters and events of England’s history, short enough to be read at one sitting. It is “argued history”, intended to inform and empower debate. The challenges faced by England today remain as they have always been: relations with its neighbouring peoples, and the internal tension between state power and personal freedom. To be in ignorance of how these challenges were met over 1,500 years not only misses a great story. For a democracy, it is dangerous. Simon Jenkins’s A Short History of England is published this week by Profile books, price £25, and will be serialised in the Guardian over the coming weeks.