Kirjahaku

The United Kingdom has been weakening, and this book helps to explain why. Alvin Jackson examines the UK in the light of the experience of similar union states elsewhere, offering the first sustained comparative study across the long 19th century and beyond. The UK was not in fact the only self-styled 'united kingdom' of the time: Jackson argues strikingly that Britain exported the idea of union through the advocacy or encouragement of other multinational united kingdoms at the beginning of the 19th century. The work is distinctive in its geographical breadth. Jackson draws together the histories of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England and explores the links between them and Sweden-Norway, the united Netherlands, Austria-Hungary, and Canada—and many other polities across the globe. United Kingdoms looks too at the institutions and agencies affecting the strength of union—from monarchy, aristocracy, and religion through to class, money, and violence. Jackson offers new overarching arguments about the origins and survival of all union states, and in doing so, sheds new light on the particular history and condition of the UK.

Colonel Edward Saunderson, the original leader of Irish Unionism, and the most prominent defender of Irish landlords in the late nineteenth century, has suffered undue neglect. This book, the first detailed account of his life to appear since the Edwardian era, explores the political traditions of the Saunderson family as well as the development and repercussions of the Colonel's career. The twin poles of Saunderson's life, landownership and the Union, represent the central themes of this study. Saunderson's Unionism was intimately bound with this status as a landed proprietor, and the party institutions and strategies which he helped to create owed much to the strengths and preoccupations of his caste. Equally, the retreat of the gentry within Irish society affected the structure and direction of the whole unionist movement. Jackson offers a wide-ranging account of an Irish landed family concentrating on its most notable member, and on the last decades of its influence. This book is both an important political biography and a valuable case-study of the gentry's economic decline and political reorientation. Edward Saunderson's career, significant within its own terms, serves to illustrate the death throes of the class to which he belonged.

This study of Irish Unionists in the Edwardian House of Commons fills an important gap in Anglo-Irish history, and is the first to examine the role of parliamentary action within the political strategies of organized loyalism. In reconstructing a neglected parliamentary party, Dr Jackson sheds new light on the mobilization of Unionism in Ireland, and on the bond between loyalism and British Conservatism. Rejecting the conventional and dismissive view of these MPs, he argues that the Irish Unionist parliamentary party possessed both influence and durability throughout the early development of popular opposition to Home Rule. By 1905, however, a combination of local dissent, and an increasingly unsympathetic Conservative leadership threatened the party's effectiveness. The book shows how Irish Unionists were forced to abandon their dependence on the House of Commons in favour of agitation and organization in Ulster. This, in turn, helps to explain why loyalists turned to a militant strategy in the years 1912-14. Dr Jackson draws on a wide range of manuscript collections and contemporary political comment to produce a study which restores the Edwardian Irish Unionist movement to a British political context, and provides a new understanding of the nature of its local development.

Much has been written about the decline of the United Kingdom. The Two Unions looks instead at the lengthy survival of the Union, examining the institutions, structures, and individuals that have contributed to its longevity. In order to understand its survival, the author, one of the foremost historians of modern Ireland and of the British-Irish relationship, sustains a comparison between the Irish and Scots Unions, their respective origins and subsequent development. He provides a detailed examination of the two interlinked Unionist movements in Scotland and Ireland. Alvin Jackson illuminates not only the history and varied health of the United Kingdom over the past 300 years, but also its present condition and prospects.

Much has been written about the decline of the United Kingdom. The Two Unions looks instead at the lengthy survival of the Union, examining the institutions, structures, and individuals that have contributed to its longevity. In order to understand its survival, the author, one of the foremost historians of modern Ireland and of the British-Irish relationship, sustains a comparison between the Irish and Scots Unions, their respective origins and subsequent development. He provides a detailed examination of the two interlinked Unionist movements in Scotland and Ireland. Alvin Jackson illuminates not only the history and varied health of the United Kingdom over the past 300 years, but also its present condition and prospects.

Alvin Jackson's Ireland 1798–1998 reappraises apparently rigid political divides and apparently decisive turning–points. The varieties of Irish political experience, and their complex interrelationship, are fully explored: particular attention is paid to the (often highly productive) tension between nationalism and Unionism. The work begins and ends with the close of a century, and spans a discrete period in Irish history. Striking comparisons are drawn between the crises of the late eighteenth century and the very rapid change experienced in the late twentieth century. Jackson's approach in Ireland 1798–1998 is throughout analytical, sceptical and humane. The book offers students and the general reader a fresh interpretation of modern Irish political history and provides perceptive insights into some familiar issues and personalities of the period. Drawing on original research and the latest secondary literature, the book is a stylish, stimulating and accessible survey of 200 years of Irish history.

Receiving widespread critical acclaim when first published, Ireland 1798-1998 has been revised to include coverage of the most recent developments. Jackson’s stylish and impartial interpretation continues to provide the most up-to-date and important survey of 200 years of Irish history. A new edition of this highly acclaimed history of Ireland, reflecting both the very latest political developments and growth of scholarshipJackson provides a balanced and authoritative account of the complex political history of modern IrelandDraws on original research and extensive reading of the latest secondary literatureJackson provides an impressive treatment of events coupled with flowing narrative, delivered analytically and elegantly