Englishness
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the characteristics of the English identity. “An Englishman’s word is his bond”, “An Englishman’s home is his castle”. “England is a nation of shopkeepers”, but also “the most exclusive club there is”. To Cecil Rhodes to be an Englishman was to have “won first prize in the lottery of life” but to Jonathan Swift the English were “the most pernicious race of odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth”. Organised, effete, cruel, brave, inventive, determined …Who are the English? And when, how and in what heat was their English identity forged? Britain has now the highest percentage of inter-racial marriages in the world. Does that say as much about the English as their previously branded characteristics of gravity, sense of order, domesticity and propriety? What was Englishness and is it possible now to define it in anything more than the loosest and baggiest terms?
Guests
-
Paul Langford No other episodes
Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford - Peter Mandler
3 episodes
Professor of Modern History at London Guildhall University -
Professor Lola Young No other episodes
Director of the National Museum and Archives of Black History and Culture
Related episodes
-
The Nation State
14 Oct, 1999 320 Political science -
Heritage
18 Jul, 2002 940 History of Europe -
The Aristocracy
19 Jun, 2003 940 History of Europe -
Multiculturalism
13 May, 1999 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology -
Slavery and Empire
17 Oct, 2002 900 History -
The British Empire’s Legacy
31 Dec, 1998 940 History of Europe -
John Bull
30 Jun, 2022 940 History of Europe -
The Norman Yoke
10 Apr, 2008 940 History of Europe -
The Magna Carta
7 May, 2009 340 Law -
The Individual
21 Oct, 1999 100 Philosophy -
Pope
9 Nov, 2006 820 English and Old English literatures -
William Cecil
7 Mar, 2019 940 History of Europe -
The Great Exhibition of 1851
27 Apr, 2006 940 History of Europe -
Johnson
27 Oct, 2005 820 English and Old English literatures -
Modern Culture
21 Jan, 1999 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism -
The American Ideal
1 Jun, 2000 320 Political science -
Empiricism
10 Jun, 2004 190 Modern Western Philosophy -
Originality
20 Mar, 2003 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism -
The Holy Grail
15 May, 2003 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism -
Republicanism
3 Feb, 2000 940 History of Europe
Programme ID: p00546r8
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00546r8
Auto-category: 305.8 (Ethnic and National Groups)