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James Vernon, Modern Britain: 1750 to the Present. The Cambridge History of Modern Britain
Journal of Contemporary History ( IF 0.670 ) Pub Date : 2020-08-19 , DOI: 10.1177/0022009420939472
Charlie Lynch 1
Affiliation  

Strange and unhealthy visions of the past gained popular currency during Britain’s 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union and were elaborated upon by commentators in its acrimonious aftermath. These stories were infused with nostalgia – particularly for the Second World War – and proclaimed the specialness of the British state and its people and their supposed indefatigability in the face of hostile outsiders. They were predominantly English in nature and misunderstood or ignored the different national identities and histories which uneasily co-existed within the United Kingdom. They were also – as James Vernon asserts in his new Modern Britain: 1750 to the Present – duplicitous about Britain’s relationship to the wider world. The Brexit debate contained a sinister racialised undercurrent which erased the imperial past. It was ‘conveniently forgotten that Britons had long enjoyed freedom of movement within their Empire, emigrating in vast numbers to “settle” in its colonies at the expense of indigenous populations. Colonial subjects also migrated to Britain as Commonwealth citizens after the British Nationality Act in 1948. They were “over here because we were over there”’ (p. 513). Accordingly, Vernon’s history sets out to locate three centuries of British history within their global context demonstrating that rather than making the modern world – the world helped make modern Britain.

中文翻译:

詹姆斯·弗农(James Vernon),《现代英国:1750年至今》。剑桥近代英国史

在英国于2016年举行的欧洲联盟成员国公投中,对过去的奇怪和不健康的看法广为流行,评论员在激烈的后果中对其进行了详细阐述。这些故事充满怀旧的气息,尤其是第二次世界大战的怀旧气息,并宣告了英国国家及其人民的特殊性,以及面对敌对局外人时坚不可摧的事实。他们本质上主要是英语,并且被误解或忽略了在英国内部不易共存的不同民族身份和历史。正如詹姆斯·弗农(James Vernon)在他的新《现代英国:1750年至今》中所断言的那样,它们也是–对英国与更广阔世界的关系持怀疑态度。英国脱欧辩论中包含了种族主义的阴险暗流,这消除了帝国主义的过去。“人们常常忘记了,英国人长期以来在帝国内部享有迁徙自由,大量移民以牺牲土著居民为代价在其殖民地中“定居”。1948年《英国国籍法》颁布后,殖民地主体也作为英联邦公民移居英国。他们“之所以在这里,是因为我们在那”(第513页)。因此,弗农的历史着眼于在全球背景下定位三个世纪的英国历史,这表明世界创造了现代英国,而不是创造了现代世界。
更新日期:2020-08-19
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