Chapter 5: British History, 1660-1832
Date
01/1998Author
Murdoch, Alexander Joseph
Metadata
Abstract
The essence of what happened to the idea of Britain in the
eighteenth century is that it mutated from an essentially
sectarian idea into one founded on ideas of empire and
racial superiority.’ Part of this process was the secession of
the inhabitants of the pre- 1763 anglophone colonies on the
mainland of North America during the last quarter of the
eighteenth century and their replacement, at the centre of
imperial activity outwith Britain by the Scots and to a certain
extent by the Irish, so that the Britain of 1829 (Catholic
Emancipation) or 1832 (Parliamentary Reform) or 1837
(the Accession of Queen Victoria) was well and truly a
very different construct from that of 1707 or even 1763.