‘Europe’ and Modernity in the British Context

Abstract

The ‘Europe as modernity’ angle sheds an interesting light on an investigation into the relationship between ‘Europe’ — as a shorthand for a set of related ideas, such as European identity, the idea of Europe and Europeanism — and Britain, since it leads to a fundamental question: ‘is Britain modern in the same way as other European countries?’ This chapter first analyses the ways in which ‘Europe’ has been made sense of by the elite in British society through a review of literature on Britain’s relationship to Europe and demonstrates that there has been a shift in understanding as to what ‘Europe’ stands for in the British public discourse. It then proceeds to examine the role of the Whig history perspective as a way of explaining why the British case has developed in the way it has. Challenges to the Whig history perspective are briefly reviewed in order to place the British case in the context of the theory of multiple modernities. By doing so, the chapter demonstrates the ‘Europe as modernity’ angle provides a new line of inquiry into the question of Britain’s relationship with ‘Europe’ as well as modernity as British society has experienced it.