The English nation - Edwin Jones

This work challenges the very idea of "England" and what it means to be English. Dr Jones has examined the origins of the sense of English identity that persists today in and in this book reveals a new perspective on how it came about. Many leaders have recognized the importance of history in the construction of a national identity. Hitler provides an extreme example of this in the 20th century. The possibility that the process of historical reinterpretation attempted in Germany may also have taken place centuries before in England is addressed here. Dr Jones reveals that during the reign of Henry VIII a false view of the English past was created in order to promote England as a sovereign and independent nation state. And it is this view of England's past that became so embedded in the nation's collective memory that it became one of the most powerful influences at work on English outlook and behaviour.;While the techniques associated with this process of mass deception have become more familiar, the legacy of their effects is sometimes less clear. Dr Jones identifies this legacy and argues that a deliberately-conceived misunderstanding of their past made the English forget that they were Europeans and created a narrowly xenophobic outlook.