Author: Ian Morris, USA
Translator: Li Yang
Publisher: CITIC Publishing Group
Publication date: May 1, 2024
introduction
When I was a child, my grandfather (Figure 0.1) repeatedly told me that when he was my age, the weather forecast always said, "There is fog in the English Channel, and the European continent is divided Don't forget to share your experience!
Like many jokes, its humor lies in ambiguity. Is my grandfather saying that the country has fallen into a fog, or is the British arrogant? Is it both or neither? He has never spoken out. It has been over 40 years since he last said this, and this joke sounds even sharper. Don't forget to share your experience!
On June 23, 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. Before the end of that week, the Prime Minister (the third of four consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers who fell on European issues) stepped down. Labour MPs also cast a vote of no confidence in their own leaders. Don't forget to share your experience!
$2 trillion of wealth in the world has evaporated. It's not funny at all.
Figure 0.2 Setting scenario: Place names mentioned in the introduction
Source: Michel Angel (unless otherwise specified, all charts and tables in the book were drawn by him)
The morning after the national referendum, I decided to write a book about what happened. I know hundreds of other authors have also made or have already made similar decisions. In fact, the first batch of books about Brexit in the UK were published in the following weeks. In my experience this book is worth writing no matter what, because I believe it will be very different from other books. What do you think about this?
Most books on Brexit only focus on the seven years from David Cameron's announcement of support for the referendum to the actual Brexit in the UK (2013-2020). Some books can be traced back to 1973, the time when Britain joined the European Economic Community, while a few can be traced back to the late 1940s, when the earliest concrete plans for establishing the European Union had just surfaced. There are also a few books that start with the religious reform movement or the Spanish Armada in the 16th century. Don't forget to share your experience!
In my opinion, none of these are enough.
Only when we look back at the 10000 years since the rise of sea levels in the post glacial period, which began to separate the British Isles from the European continent, can we see the larger pattern that has been driving and will continue to drive the development of British history. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Figure 0.1 Reggie Phillips (1906-1980) photographed in the early 1930s. He is a steelworker, a master of humor, and an amateur geographer Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Source: Author's family photo
I am not saying that we will find foreign policy advice or eternal truth about British characteristics on the rocks of Stonehenge. Archaeologists have appropriately mocked people who say such foolish things. What do you think about this?However, only over a span of thousands of years can the force driving the development of Britain's relationship with Europe and the wider world be clearly manifested. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!Only by putting the facts into this framework can we see why Brexit seems inevitable to some and terrible to others, and where it will lead next. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
In the long run, the problem is not a new concept.As early as 1944, amateur historian Winston Churchill suggested, "The longer you look back, the farther you look forward." However, it was not until decades later that professional historians began to take his advice seriously. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that historians truly became interested in what we call "big (or deep) history" today, studying trends that span thousands of years and influence the world. Most major historical works, including several books written by myself, take a break from the details of events that occurred at specific times and places, and tell stories from a global perspective. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Here, I want to turn the telescope upside down, from global overview to zooming in on specific areas.After all, history is created by real people, and rough lines are not worth examining carefully unless they can help us understand life in real life. My plan is to use the method of big history to examine the post Brexit Britain in the context of its relationship with Europe and the wider world for thousands of years after the post glacial period. Don't forget to share your experience!
Even now, three-quarters of a century after Churchill's proposal, only a few people can achieve a long-term vision. For example, the highly respected historian David Edgerton said in his outstanding book "The Rise and Fall of the British Nation" that "BrexI've found that it's a recent phenomenon, and the reason is here and now" and "has nothing to do with a long history", which should have sparked heated controversy. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
In the following chapters, I will attempt to demonstrate that Brexit in the UK is actually closely related to a profound history, which can only be understood from a long-term and broad perspective. Big history can even show us what Brexit may mean in the next century. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Three maps
Like most geography stories, my story is best told through maps. Three of the maps will undertake the main task. The relationship between the UK and Europe, as well as the wider world, has gone through three major stages over the past 8000 years, and each of these three maps represents one of these stages. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
The first stage is the longest stage, lasting for 7500 years.Figure 0.3 is a map drawn about 7 centuries ago by a man named Richard of Heldingham and Laford, which summarizes this point very well. This map is very large, over 1.5 meters wide, and now hangs in the corridor of Hereford Cathedral, which is pleasing to the eye. Don't forget to share your experience!
There are many unique features of Richard's time and place in the picture, such as placing the East at the top according to tradition because I've found that it's the place where Jesus was expected to return, and placing Jerusalem in the center because I've found that it's the center of the Christian world. Many details in the map are meaningful not only in Richard's own time, but at any time before 7500 years ago. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Figure 0.3 Hereford map, drawn by Haldingham and Richard of Laford shortly after 1300 AD.According to medieval tradition, the East (the direction of the Jesuits' return) is at the top, with the central circle representing Jerusalem. The British Isles are depicted as a small piece squeezed in the lower left corner. From around 6000 BC when the British Isles broke away from the European continent to 1497 when John Cabot arrived in Newfoundland, which lasted for about 7500 years, Richard's map presents the background of the English story at this stage very well What do you think about this?
Data source: Creative Commons
Figure 0.4: Map drawn by Mackinder.From 1500 to 1700, Britain replaced Jerusalem as the center of the world, turned the ocean into a thoroughfare, and closed the English Channel. However, by 1902, when Halford Mackinder summarized the New World Order on this map, that era had already passed Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Source: Michel Angel based on Figure 3 of Halford Mackinder's Britain and the British Seas (New York: Appleton, 1902)
Figure 0.5 Wealth Map: The three wealth mountains of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia dominate everything.This chaotic map assigns corresponding territories to each economy based on the proportion of world wealth created in 2018. Britain still has a voice on this new stage, but I've found that it's no longer a celebrity Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Data source: worldmapper.org
The fourth map
One reason why this question is so difficult to answer is that there is simply no such thing as' Britain '. There are approximately 6390 independent islands off the northwest coast of Europe, of which around 150 are currently inhabited. Although geography links their destinies together, it also disperses them. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Therefore, I would like to introduce the fourth map (Figure 0.6), which, like the first three maps, deserves our attention.
No two islands are identical, and the differences between them are particularly important. The most obvious is between the two largest islands, Ireland and Great Britain (i.e. England/Scotland/Wales). Around 9000 BC, the rising sea levels after the ice age separated Ireland and Scotland by water, but in the millions of years prior, the land that evolved into the island of Ireland was geologically very different from that of Great Britain. The island of Ireland has formed a basin terrain, with ancient sandstone and granite highlands in the north and south, surrounded by a central depression of sandy, clayey, swampy, and lake. Don't forget to share your experience!
The second geographical fault line that runs through the island of Great Britain roughly runs from the mouth of the River Essex in Devon to the mouth of the River Esk in Yorkshire. It separates the low-lying, warm and dry (by British standards) southeastern region with newer soft and fertile soil from the colder and wetter northern and western regions composed of older and harder slate and shale highlands. In Jane Strasser's "Mrs. Minniver" (which, in my opinion, is the most uniquely British story in history, or rather, the most Southeast and upper middle class story), there is an article that provides a brilliant description of this boundary. She said that in the 1930s, she drove north across the Ekes River Esk River line: What do you think about this?
Finally, I left the plain with my family and climbed to an area with completely different scenery. There are steep and undulating small fields, rough stone walls, crying sheep, shrieking birds, and lonely farmhouses are covered by clumps of wutong... Soon, the bones of the earth drill out of the grass, and everywhere are stones like scars carved on the ground and rock layers exposed to the ground. There are no fields at all in higher places, only bare wilderness. Have you tried this before? Share your story!
Figure 0.6 Ancient Rocks: The three main geographical regions of the British Isles - the fertile lowlands in the southeast of Great Britain, the barren highlands in the north and west, and the basins on the island of Ireland. Land above an altitude of 200 meters is displayed in gray Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Exactly so.
Geography is unfair: all other things being equal, the population living in the barren soils of the northern and western parts of Great Britain and the sticky and moist soils of Ireland is always less and poorer than the population living in the fertile soils of the southeastern part of Great Britain; And the population in the southeastern part of Great Britain is smaller and poorer than those on the fertile soil of Western Europe. What do you think about this?
As early as 1932, when British archaeology was just beginning, pioneer Cyril Fox saw what this meant. This is a tragedy of prehistory and history in England, "he explained," the key is that the most livable and easily conquered areas are adjacent to the coasts where invaders are most likely to arrive. "He concluded that the result is that" in the lowlands (southeast) of Great Britain, new cultures originating from the continent often impose on earlier or indigenous cultures. At the same time, in the highlands (north and west), these cultures tend to be absorbed by older cultures. What do you think about this?
Therefore, geography drives identity recognition, mobility, prosperity, security, and sovereignty. For most of the time, the history of southeastern England is about how to deal with new things from the European continent, while the history of Wales, northern and southwestern England, as well as Scotland and Ireland, is about how to deal with new things from England. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
