Cosmopolitan Islanders British Historians and the European Continent

In Cosmopolitan Islanders one of the world's leading historians asks why it is that so many prominent and influential British historians have devoted themselves to the study of the European continent. Books on the history of France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and many other European countries, and of Europe more generally, have frequently reached the best-seller lists both in Britain and (in translation) in those European countries themselves. Yet the same is emphatically not true in reverse. Richard J. Evans traces the evolution of British interest in the history of Continental Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. He goes on to discuss why British historians who work on aspects of European history in the present day have chosen to do so and why this distinguished tradition is now under threat. Cosmopolitan Islanders ends with some reflections on what needs to be done to ensure its continuation in the future.

Preface; 1. Unequal exchanges; 2. The view across the Channel; 3. Open borders; 4. A sense of adventure; 5. The language problem; Appendix; Further reading.

Richard J. Evans traces the evolution of British interest in the history of Continental Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. He discusses why the many British historians who work on Europe have chosen to do so and why this very distinguished tradition is now under threat.

Richard J. Evans is Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. A Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, Professor Evans has also taught at Birkbeck, University of London, where he was Vice-Master, and the University of East Anglia, where he was Professor of European History.