Historical Growth

Britain's constitutional title today is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland or UK. The nation comprises large and smaller islands off the north-western
European mainland, which at various points are touched by the North Sea, the
English Channel, the Irish Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. The biggest island, Great
Britain, is divided into England, Scotland and Wales, and Northern Ireland shares the
second-largest island with the Republic of Ireland, with which it has a land border.
In prehistory, these areas were visited by Old, Middle and New Stone Age nomads,
some of whom later settled permanently. From about 600 BC-AD 1066, the islands
experienced successive settlement and invasion patterns from peoples who
originated in mainland Europe, such as so-called Celts, Belgic tribes, Romans,
Germanic tribes (Anglo-Saxons), Scandinavians and Normans. In conventional
accounts of British history, these immigrants over time collectively created a multi-
ethnic British population with mixed identities and different origins. They experienced
very different internal situations, abrupt political changes and a degree of violence as
well as external conflicts both with one another and other countries in their historical
growth to nationhood. There are still substantial differences between these peoples
and competing allegiances within the four countries themselves.
Later developments within the islands were greatly influenced first by the
expansionist, military aims of English monarchs and second by a series of political
unions. Ireland and Wales had been effectively under English control since the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively, while Scotland was joined dynastically to
England in 1603. Movement towards a British state (with its Parliament power base in
London) was achieved by political unions between England, Wales and Scotland
(Great Britain) in 1707 and between Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. In 1921,
southern Ireland left the union to eventually become the independent Republic of
Ireland while Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.
The developed British Empire was an extension of earlier English monarchs' internal
military expansionism within the islands and in mainland Europe. Following initial
reversals in Europe, they sought raw materials, possessions and trade. This
colonialism was aided by increasing military power into the twentieth Century.
Internally, successive agricultural revolutions added to the countrys wealth. Britain
also developed an early manufacturing and financial base. It became an industrial
and largely urban country from the late eighteenth century because of a series of
industrial revolutions and inventions. Throughout its history, Britain has been
responsible for major and influential scientific, medical and technological advances.
Political union within Britain, despite continuing tensions, had also gradually
encouraged the idea of a British identity (Britishness), in which all the component
countries of the UK could share. This was tied to Britain's imperial position in the
world and an identification with the powerful institutions of the state, such as the
monarchy, law, Parliament, the military and Protestant religion. But national identities
in the four countries of the union persisted and became stronger as competing forces
arose in the twentieth century. Pressure for constitutional change eventually resulted
first in the partition of Ireland in 1921 and second in devolution (transfer of some
political power from the London Parliament to elected bodies in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland) by 1998-9. These changes encouraged fierce debate about such
issues as the nature of Britishness, national identities within the union and the future
constitutional and political structure of the United Kingdom (including the possibility of
complete independence for Scotland), which are still being addressed in
contemporary Britain.
Since the Second World War ( 1 939-45), Britain has had to adjust with difficulty to
the results of a withdrawal from empire, which was inevitable in the face of rising
nationalism and self-determination in the colonies; a reduction in world political
status; global economic recessions; a relative decline in economic power; increased
foreign competition; internal social change; a geopolitical world order of superpowers
(the United States and the Soviet Union); international fluctuations and new tensions
after the break-up of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, with the USA becoming the
dominant force; the emergence of Far Eastern powers such as China and India; and
a changing Europe following the destruction wrought by two world wars.