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  • Cosmopolitan Islanders?Britain and Europe in the Long Eighteenth Century
  • Douglas Kanter
Stephen Conway . Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Similarities, Connections, Identities (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2011). Pp. xii + 342. 7 figures. $125
Jennifer Mori . The Culture of Diplomacy: Britain in Europe, ca. 1750-1830 (Manchester: Manchester Univ., 2010). Pp. xii + 244. $95

The historical development of England is based on the fact that her frontiers against Europe are drawn by Nature, and cannot be the subject of dispute; that she is a unit sufficiently small for coherent government to have been established and maintained even under very primitive conditions; that since 1066 she has never suffered serious invasion; that no big modern armies have succeeded her feudal levies; and that her senior service is the navy, with which foreign trade is closely connected. In short, a great deal of what is peculiar in English history is due to the obvious fact that Great Britain is an island.1

Thus Sir Lewis Namier, who spent much of his career tilting at the windmills of Whig historiography, unwittingly endorsed a central premise of the Whig historians. British (or, in Namier's formulation, "English") historical development was indeed exceptional, as the Whigs had contended, because Britain [End Page 121] was geographically distinct from Europe. Thomas Babington Macaulay, for example, had similarly credited the emergence of England's ostensibly unique and superior constitution "chiefly to her insular situation."2 If, in the postwar decades, historians have generally produced a less celebratory account of British development than their predecessors, they have nevertheless been concerned to demonstrate that physical separation from continental Europe encouraged the articulation of a distinctive identity. Most famously, of course, some twenty years ago Linda Colley argued that eighteenth-century Britons defined themselves "in conscious opposition to the Other beyond their shores."3

Yet, as Stephen Conway emphasizes in Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe in the Eighteenth Century, "the Channel and the Narrow Seas" surrounding the British Isles have always functioned not only "as barriers, as we are so often encouraged to regard them, but as zones of exchange and interaction; or as bridges and gateways" (253). By attempting to situate Britain in Europe—to borrow Jennifer Mori's subtitle—the two works under review provide a more nuanced evaluation of the linkages between the Isles and the Continent in the long eighteenth century. In so doing, they contribute to a growing body of historical literature that reveals Britons to be an "island race," when seen from one perspective, but, from another vantage point, to be "cosmopolitan islanders" whose relationship with continental Europe was persistent, significant, and often constructive.4

Conway's book is certain to attract considerable scholarly attention, both because the author casts his net widely, and because his conclusions about British identity offer a corrective to the received historiographical wisdom. Examining the period between the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 and the Peace of Amiens of 1802, Conway seeks to "focus our attention on the characteristics of eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland that they shared with the Continent," to examine the connections between the British Isles and the mainland, and to demonstrate that, in certain circumstances, "The British and Irish might see themselves as Europeans" (3). Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe is arranged thematically. Each chapter examines a different aspect of British and, to a lesser extent, Irish engagement with the Continent; perceived constitutional similarities, foreign policy, finance and trade, cultural relations, intellectual exchange, religious ties, tourism, migration, maritime connections, and military service all receive treatment. As the diverse list of subjects under consideration indicates, this is a remarkably ambitious book, which is informed by the author's omnivorous and comprehensive reading. Few historians of the eighteenth century can rival Conway's range: his source base includes not only such traditional staples of eighteenth-century historiography as the Newcastle Papers, but also more obscure and esoteric material, such as merchants' ledgers, cookbooks, and musical scores. [End Page 122]

By deploying such disparate evidence, Conway demonstrates not only that the connections between Britain, Ireland, and continental Europe were extensive during the eighteenth century, but also that contemporaries often recognized them as such. Some Britons, for instance...

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