These are the summaries of the “Where Historians Differ” subchapters of the Frank-Magyarics

Handouts for British History book, which are (supposedly) the main topics of the Lojkó exam.

Historians and other contributors in bold, key stuff underlined. (I don’t actually think these names
will be important)

Chapter 1: The British Isles: The Land and the People. From Roman Britain to Norman England

- carbon dating shows that megalithic tombs in Britain were built before the Mediterranean ones,
and are not derived from them
- they ones in Malta, Portugal, Denmark and Britain probably developed independently
- Childe (1940)
- Stonehenge was not only a temple, but an astronomical observatory with practical, religious and
scientific purposes
- monolith alignments at Stonehenge pointed at the rising/setting sun and moon
- calendar + spectacular view (used by priests in rituals)
- Hawkins (1964), astronomer at Smithsonian
- Native Britons were not exterminated by the Anglo-Saxons, just decimated and conquered as
servants
- based on Briton river names still in use in the West

Chapter 2: Domesday England: The Anglo-Norman Times (1066-1154)

- 1867-79: 6 volumes about the Norman Conquest

- Freeman
- the Conquest didn't really alter the existing Germanic political structure
- Round: pol. structures were significantly changed, and the origins of the new one must be searched
for in the Norman society
- today: there is basic continuity between the Old English and the Anglo-Norman kingdom, but the
Norman duchy influenced it heavily later in the 11th century

Chapter 3: High Medieval England

- Parliament (Latin/French: "a talk")

- from the 1240s: important assembly of the king and nobles to discuss military, financial,
judicial, domestic and foreign matters
- king meeting not only with inner circle of councillors, but with a number of clerical, laymen,
and magnates.
- P. under Henry III: "occasion rather than institution"
- Simon de Montfort's P. (and Edward I after him): 4 knights from each shire and 2 burgesses
from certain boroughs attended (commoners from towns! - democracy!)
- scholars differ on the importance of P. during the reigns of Edward I and II
- enlarged council, high court of justice, or representative assembly
- P.'s importance was very wide
- lot of judicial business during this era; representation while taxation was discussed;
and while not a legislative body under Edward I, P. meetings were the occasions where new
legislation was announced
- Arnold (1963)
 Chapter 4: The 14th Century: War and Crisis

- do nations profit from war?

- 19th century: they don't
- British historians M. M. Postan and K. B. McFarlane debating the topic: was the Hundred Years'
War profitable?
- impact of the war on English society
- Postan (1942): 100Y War barely relevant in social change
- McFarlane ("20 years later"): French suffered, English profited
- exploitation of occupied French territories
- Postan: "circular tour of wealth"
- war taxes on agriculture -> brought back to the countryside by merchants, soldiers,
officials
- McFarlane: French largely responsible for the expansion of English wealth
- Postan (1961/64): profits couldn't have been high enough
- growth due to the hundred years that passed, and not the war itself

Chapter 5: The Growth of an English National Identity

- emergence of the vernacular English (standard, native form)

- Geoffrey Chaucer - huge influence
- Simeon Potter (1950): Chaucer "sometimes over-estimated"
- 14th century: two languages blending, Chaucer was influental
- he chose to write in only English as opposed to English, French and Latin (as Gower or
Milton did)
- George Sampson - Cambridge History of English Literature (1941): "appeal to a
larger audience", "bound to find the best English to write in"
- C. L. Wrenn (1949): "no writer (...) could have much effect on the language as a whole", "it
was inevitable that (Chaucer's) educated London speech (...) became the basis of the modern
recieved standard"
- dominant influence on the tradition and language of English poetry (by
"anglicising" Western European poetic diction)
- R. J. Mitchell and M. D. R. Leys (1950): agree + universities were in the London area
(influential by itself)
- Barbara M. H. Strang ("recent"): London-based standard language due to various social
changes, economical reasons, etc., NOT Chaucer

Chapter 6: The Tudor Monarchy I: Early Modern England (1485-1558)

- Tudor era once seemed to be the best known period in English history
- A. F. Pollard (19. century) established a picture of a progressive Tudor era, modern in
comparison with the previous Middle Age English rule (humanism, Protestantism)
- Henry VII and VIII: restoration of royal power, Elizabeth I: exploitation of the power
- today: everything uncertain and debated, starting with Pollard's once firm and solid
analysis of policy, govt. and adminstration

- 1530s: changes in the Tudor govt.

- G. R. Elton (1953): "revolutionary"
- England became a sovereign state; king has supreme power
- England replaced medieval with modern, national, bureaucratic administration
- Thomas Cromwell (Oliver's distant relative) wrote the preable to the Act of Appeals
 - "England is an Empire"
- no papal jurisdiction
- statute law over natural or divine law
- King acting through Parliament: limited monarchy
- revolution in administration: Cromwell elevated the position of Secretary to basically right
hand of the King (control over finances, defense, religion, foreign affairs, etc.), established a regular
Privy Council
- modern, bureaucratic administration less dependent on the King
- G. L. Harriss and Henry Williams: "exaggerated"
- papal power was already limited
- Parliament already had legislative power
- office of Secretary declined after Cromwell
- Elizabetians had to restore the administration
- Elton concedes that he had exaggerated
- it's true that:
- profound changes happened under Cromwell
- it wasn't revolutionary, but a decisive step in the evolution of administration

Chapter 20: The Nationality Problem in Modern Britain

Beauchamp Kay

Tony Chater: Race Relations in Britain, 1966

-detailed information about immigration to Britain between 1951 and 1964

-origins of racism and racialist myths

-Commonwealth Act: Commonwealth workers need a Ministry of Labour voucher to work in

Britain

-Labour Government  the number of admitted voucher holders is gradually

reduced

-All those who came: in Cat. A (a job which cannot be filled in Britain) or Cat. B
(special skills)

-no Cat. C workers  workers who could take unskilled or semi-skilled

occupations when shortage of labour were exluded

-More emigrants than immigrants (800000 more, 1946-1964)

Chapter 21.: The Workshop of the World: The Growth of the British Economy in the 19th Century

G. R. Elton

-Prof. Walt W. Rostow: The British Economy of the 19th Century, 1948  very influential

-J. D. Chambers: The Workshop of the World: The British Economic History from 1820 to
1880, 1961

-R. S. Sayers: A History of Economic Change in England, 1880-1939, 1967

-G. Sidney Checkland: The Rise of Industrial Society in England, 1815-1885, 1964

-genuinely learned explanation of the complications opf economic development

 -W. Ashworth: An Economic History of England, 1870-1939, 1960

-W. H. B Court: British Economic History, 1870-1914, 1965

-Hrothgar J. Habakkuk: American and British Technology in the 19th Century, 1962

-F. M. L. Thompson: English Landed Society in the 19th Century, 1963

-John Saville

-Rostow’s Economic Historical Review, 1938

-The British Economy of the 19th Century, 1948

- attempt of a sustained dynamic analysis

-interpretation: “in terms of the shifting balance between the productive and
unproductive outlays; and among types of different outlays with differing fields and different
periods of gestation”

-1815-1847: intensive home investment

-1848-1873: investment outlays in wars or long term in their economic effects

-1873-1898: home investment again

-1898-1914: capital was invested abroad rather than at home

 Great Depression?!  not marked in this division, but it should be, as a transition
between two periods

Chapter 22: Britain In World War I

G. R. Elton

-E. Llewellyn Woodward: Great Britain and the War of 1914-1918, 1967

-Arthur J. Marder: From the Dreadnought to the Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher
Era, 1909-1919

-multivolume treatment of the navy and the war at sea

-Maron C. Siney: The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1914-1916

-a study of the other maritime method of warfare

-Paul Guinn: British Strategy and Politics, 1914-1918

-Goes the round of the various theatres of war in order to bring out the close links
between the fighting and domestic politics

-Alan Moorehead: Gallipoli

-a fine job on the most controversial of all the campaigns

-Epstein

-Fritz Fischer: Griff Nacht der Weltmacht

 -aim of Imperial German foreign policy: the achievement of world power status
through continental hegemony

- Gerhard Ritter: Staatkunst und Kriegshandwerk

-biggest criticism against Fischer’s treatment of prewar policy and men who made it

-but he fails to refute Fischer’s claim that during the war Germany succumbed to a
collective megalomania which expressed itself in utterly unrealistic war aims

- but he succeeds in challenging Fischer’s contention that the war aims were merely
reflections of attitudes and aspirations current in Germany in 1914 which prompted German leaders
to risk a major war

Chapter 23: Britain Between the Wars (1919-1939)

G. R. Elton

-A. J. P. Taylor: English History, 1914-1945

-serious failure to treat matters economic or scientific, but assisted with the author’s
own prejudices and scepticism

-Charles C. Mowat: Britain between the Wars, 1918-1940

-balanced approach, with skilful treatment of crucial socio-economic problems

-W. N. Medlicott: Contemporary England, 1914-1964

-more conventional but careful and useful book

-succeeds in applying a historical stance to the author’s own timeline

-Alfred F. Havinghurst: Twentieth Century Britain

-plain, thorough, sympathetic handling of the period

-F. G. Northedge: The Troubled Giant: Britain among the Great Powers, 1916-1939

-tries to juxtapose the realities and the myths of British world power between the
wars

-A. Philip Reynolds: British Foreign Policy in the Inter-War Years

-originally intended form 6th forms in schools  less ambitious, less useful

-Henry R. Wrinkler: The League of Nations Movement in Great Britain, 1914-1919

-investigates various proposals for an international organization after World War I

-Gilbert, Gott: The Appeasers

-the crises of the Hitler era

-somewhat one-sided, but readable

-E. G. Hobsbawn
 -Robert Blake (Bonar Law), Beaverbrook (Mon and Power)  the politics of the
Conservatives now are well known, as opposed to the Labour Party, especially the politics of the T.
U. C.

-Henry Pelling

-Taylor devoted too much space in his book to the development of the power of the state

- main weakness: unwillingness to allow for the strength of social and political sources
outside Whitehall and Westminster
Chapter 5: The Growth of an English National Identity
Chapter 6: The Tudor Monarchy I: Early Modern England (1485-1558)
Chapter 7: The Tudor Monarchy Elizabethan England (1558-1603)
Chapter 8: Early Stuart England: The Road to the English Revolution (1603-1640)
Chapter 9: Conflict and Civil War: The English Revolution (1640-1660)
Chapter 10: Restoration England (1660-1688)
Chapter 11: The Rise of Great Britain (1689-1714)
Chapter 12: Augustan England (1714-1760)
Chapter 13: The More Than Industrial" Revolution
Chapter 14: Wars with France (1793-1815)
Chapter 15: A Century of Reform Bills
Chapter 16: Britain and the World I: The British Empire
Chapter 17: Britain and the World II: Foreign Policy in the 19th Century
Chapter 18: "Two Nations:" The Social Scene of Victorian Britain
Chapter 19: Conservatives vs Liberals: Victorian Party Politics
Chapter 20: The Nationality Problem In Modern Britain
Chapter 21: The Workshop of the World: The Growth of the British Economy in the 19th Century
Chapter 22: Britain In World War I
Chapter 23: Britain Between the Wars (1919-1939)
Chapter 24: The Origins of World War II: British Foreign Policy In the 1930s
Chapter 26: Britain in World War II
Chapter 26: Post-War Britain I: The Welfare State
Chapter 27: Post-War Britain II: The Emergence of Neo-Conservatism