Search results
3 Wales and Brittany: history, politics, society The choice of Wales and Brittany to form the core of a comparative case study presents two historic regions with complex but strong identities. Insofar as their quality as regions is concerned, the mix of similarity and difference makes the Wales-Brittany pair a good one for comparative analysis, fulfilling the criteria of comparability in terms of spatial location, population size, economic activity, linguistic specificity and common historical ties. The WalesBrittany comparison was designed to elucidate similar
3303 Devolution 31/3/09 08:43 Page 142 7 Devolution is a process: Wales Devolution is a process, not an event. (Ron Davies) Introduction Even more than Scotland, the nature of the union between Wales and the rest of Britain has undergone significant change over a relatively short period of time. A historical overview is essential to understand why Welsh devolution today differs from that which exists in Scotland. What becomes clear is that while Welsh devolution is a pale version of that in Scotland, Welsh institutional development has been more dramatic
. Canadian historians, for instance, have also faced the issue of whether their people were colonisers or colonised – and coming to terms with the fact that they have been both. 3 But in Wales the discussion has been remarkably one-sided: there has been little sustained interest in the place of Welsh people in the empire. Imperialism has entered Welsh discussion mainly as internal colonialism, in the now rather tired debates initiated by Michael Hechter. More usefully, it has been reprised, with cultural variations, in the recent
6 ‘Here is Wales, there England’: contested borders and blurred boundaries in On the Black Hill Kate Woodward Ynom mae y Clawdd a phob ymwybod, y tir hwn a godwyd rhyngom a’r gwastadedd blin. The dyke is within us, and all consciousness; this land has been raised between ourselves and the threatening plain.1 It is dawn. The moon is still visible, and rolling hills thick with morning mist emerge through the twilight, stretching back as far as the eye can see. The camera slowly pans, revealing miles of ethereal hills bathed in a soft pink glow, accompanied by a
Written by leading specialists in the field, this book is a collection of essays that explore economic, social, cultural, political, and religious interactions between Wales and the empire. It discusses the many relationships that developed between Wales and the British overseas empire between 1650 and 1830. The book looks at Welsh influences on the emergence of 'British' imperialism, as well as the impact that the empire had upon the development of Wales itself. Using the West Indian and East Indian connection, the book quantifies different interactions that occurred between Wales and the overseas empire. It highlights how expansion in Asia served to draw Wales and the Welsh into the domestic and overseas worlds of the London-based East India Company. The book also explores the aspects of the impact that expansion had upon the development of the Welsh economy. The focus then turns to the Atlantic-facing parts of the Welsh economy. How British expansion in the Atlantic basin opened up opportunities for people from Wales to take a prominent place in international communities of religious thought and belief is shown. Participation in an expanding spiritual empire brought like-minded individuals together in transoceanic networks and this engagement helped to shape the emergence of Welsh evangelical identities. Finally, Welsh interactions with the nascent British empire in India are analysed. Much work remains to be done if Wales is to be fully integrated into the British imperial historiography and the empire is to be afforded a central role in the writing of Welsh history.
6 BBC broadcasting in Wales, 1922–53 In 1949, Alun Oldfield-Davies, Controller of the BBC’s station in Wales, declared: “the basic job of the BBC in Wales is to nourish and encourage national unity and to add wealth, depth, and value to all aspects of national life.”1 At first, this seems to be a rather straightforward testament to the role of the BBC in Wales. For Oldfield-Davies, Wales was not a region but a nation, albeit one that lacked a cohesive culture or identity. The BBC, he suggested, could and ought to participate in the process of forming a national
8 Regional political capacity in Wales and Brittany This book set out to deepen the understanding of processes of comparative regional governance by investigating two historic regions (Wales and Brittany) in two neighbouring European Union states. Chapter 1 presented a theoretical framework based on regional political capacity, defined as an interactive process encompassing institutions and institutional processes, actors and their relationships, socially constructed identities and forms of overarching regulation (Kooiman, 2003; Le Galès, 2002; Loughlin, 2001
12 Conquest, roads and resistance in medieval Wales Dylan Foster Evans In his General View of the Agriculture and Domestic Economy of South Wales of 1815, the Reverend Walter Davies (‘Gwallter Mechain’) relates a tale concerning Valentine Morris (1727–89) of Piercefield near Chepstow. The Monmouthshire gentleman was giving evidence at the House of Commons and was asked what roads were to be had in the county. ‘None’ was his answer. ‘How do you travel then?’ he was asked. ‘In ditches,’ came the reply.1 This anecdote is one of many that may be adduced as evidence
6 Chapter 5 The spoken word Vagabonds and minstrels in sixteenth-century Wales Vagabonds and minstrels in sixteenth-century Wales Richard Suggett T hroughout much of late medieval and early modern Europe, from Poland and Russia in the east to Wales and Ireland in the west, itinerant minstrels entertained noble and plebeian audiences. Wandering entertainers may well have provided (as Burke has suggested) one of the unifying elements within European popular culture. A pan-European tradition of minstrelsy, crossing social and cultural boundaries, is an
attention is given to the Atlantic borderland of the British archipelago, of which Wales was part. Although historians are increasingly interested in the impact that imperial endeavour had on the British Isles themselves, the focus of attention is very often metropolitan – on London as the organising centre of a ‘gentlemanly capitalism’, for example. The cultural turn taken by the ‘new imperial history’, with its professed concern for the marginal and the subaltern, promises something different, but here too a metropolitan bias