How on earth?

So for some reason I've been getting into history recently. I'm just nearing the end of John O'Farrell's "Utterly Impartial History of Britain - or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge" which as the name suggests gives a whistlestop tour of the major events of British History. And what a history it is? I guess one of the things that dawned on me while I was travelling was how much wherever I want there was such a strong British influence (South America, India, China, Japan, Oz and NZ). And all this from such a small seemingly insignificant bit of land on the edge of Europe. Which prompts my title question, how on earth did this happen? Ironically for the first 1000 years of this countries history we were lagards compared to the rest of the developed world. Admittedly we got nudged on a little bit in terms of progress by the Roman invasion but for the majority of time we were on the recieving end from any European power who at that time were looking to expand their borders (The Vikings, The Celts, The French, The Germans etc.).

The frightening thing about all this is how little I knew. And upon learning a lot of this stuff my initial emotional response was frustration. How could you not teach kids this wild and wacky tale of progress? Admittedly there's a lot to teach but even a cursory understanding of history would help irradiacte any possible argument of England for the English. If there's a country in the world with more of an ethnic mix I'd like to see it. First of all there were the Romans, Then we were ruled by the Vikings, then the Germans, then the French and then back to the Germans (the current Royal family). I had no idea that England was ruled by a French King for over 200 years around 1200 when the Lingua Franca amongst Royalty and all the upper class land owners was French not English! Or that in relatively recent times (1714) we'd have a King who it is rumoured could not speak a word of English despite the fact he sat on the throne for 13 years!

Now if you understood that from an early age could you really contest any other foreign national to come to this country? I dont think so. And for that reason alone I think its criminal we're not taught British history (all we ever learnt at school was WWI and WWII).

So back to the question! How did we manage to become so influential? Well the greatest export of the UK seems to be an intellectual one. I hadnt realised how much of the founding philosophies of the Western World actually originated from these shores. And I guess part of that is probably down to the melting pot of people and ideas that have enabled that. What am I talking about here? Well whilst the Spanish and Portugese beat us to Colonization by some 200 years they didnt take it to quite the extreme that we did. Not withstanding the crimes that occured during this time it was the cultural equivalent of hitting the fast forward button. We were the first people to really recognize that Royalty wasnt really divine and to get them to respect legal procedures and that his will for the first time was to be bound by the law. In addition to that we admirably ejected the Catholic church (although the establishment of extremist Protestantism did its best to tarnish that achievement). And in that new world where Royalty and God were less influential we came up with many of the ideas that would help fill some of that void and carry huge influence (ideas and developments in science, mathmatics, philosophy, politics, and modern concepts of democracy, rule of law, freedom of press and capitalism; as we recognise them today can be argued to be of British origin).

I guess in some way the Explosion of the British Empire validated in the eyes of many the intellectual concepts of the home nation across the world. Yet few people today seem to question or challenge these ideas despite the fact that they have ultimately proved self defeating (the Empire after all fell). But then again all Empires have, so perhaps such things are inevitable and the ideas can't be held accountable?

The other intriguing thing that the book touches upon is this changing idea of who the British are, and what they are about? It's not something I'm going to tackle here - it's a big subject - but it is fascinating to think how much we have changed in just 50 years, let alone in 2000! Which leaves the tantalising question what will we be like in another 50, 100, 1000 and 2000 years?!!!!!!!