The British Problem, C. 1534-1707

This pioneering book seeks to transcend the limitations of separate English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh histories by taking the archipelago made up of the islands of Britain and Ireland as a single unit of study. This is a story of the creation of a British state system if not a British state, with the incorporation of Wales into the English state, the creation of a kingdom of Ireland dependent on the English Crown and of a confederation of the Scottish and English crowns; and it is the story of how the various peoples of the archipelago interacted and became different peoples as a result of that interaction.