How Much has British Society Changed in Three Centuries?

Edmund Burke blasted the explosiveness of the French Revolution, and the chaos that came out of it. To his credit, he accurately predicted that it could only end in one way: through the iron fist of a dictator.

Indeed, he was proven right when Napoleon took over. Before long, Napoleon controlled much of Europe, and Great Britain was engaged in a long war.

Burke was proven right, and he offered the English model as a more stable and sensible approach, suggesting that gradual change, which he deemed the English way, was far more desirable.

Sure enough, often times, the sense that people get of Britain is that things rarely seem to change there. Tradition reigns supreme, and change is viewed with a strong measure of skepticism.

Understandable or not, this has often been the way the nation is viewed, and sometimes either praised criticized, by outsiders.

Of course, change has come to Great Britain, as it did almost everywhere else. This was the first industrialized nation, after all. Technology has surely changed Britain more than anything else during the passage of three centuries.

Certainly, history has changed it as well. Britain did see change, and turbulent change, at times, particularly when King Edward I was forced to sign the Magna Carta, and even more so during what some people refer to as the English Revolution in the 1600's (although the debate is open as to whether or not this actually qualified as a revolution in the conventional sense).

But all of that came before 1714. The American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the expansion of the British Empire, the Napoleonic Wars, two world wars, the dismantling of the empire, the Cold War, mass immigration, and the technology age all came since. Obviously, those things have changed the face of the United Kingdom, and the psyche of the people living there.

So, how much has Britain changed in three centuries?

Here is a link to a fascinating article that expands on that theme:



To be continued: how much has English society changed since 1714? Much has changed in English culture since 1710. But a new book argues our systems of power are less different than we might think.   BY MARK DAMAZER PUBLISHED 5 FEBRUARY, 2015


http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/01/mark-damazer-society-book-review