I would like to gain an understanding on the history of Great Britain, and more specifically on the relationship between the nations leading up to and during this period.
I’m interested in the historical reasons for some of the friction between the nations that have led to things like the split between Northern and Southern Ireland, the movement for Scottish independence and so forth. I’ve had a look on the recommend book list but they seem a too focused on particular period/issue for what I’m looking for (although perhaps I may need more than one book?). Therefore please can you recommend me a book to tackle this topic?
Sorry if this isnt specific enough or too broad a time scale, I dont know much about history
Your topic covers a period of about 800 years, with events in multiple polities. There’s just so much! You need lots of books and articles. Do you have any access to journals and databases through your library?
You would want to start with a general resource like The Penguin History of Great Britain. It’s nine volumes, but readily available from libraries.
Wales exists, too. Here’s a good one about the process of assimilating Wales after Edward I of England defeated the last native Welsh monarch and Parliament enacted the Statute of Wales (1284):
Diane M. Korngiebel (2003). "Forty acres and a mule: the mechanics of English settlement in North-east Wales after the Edwardian conquest". Haskins Society Journal. 14: 99–100.
You can also look into the circumstances of the Act of Union (1536), which eliminated Wales’s status as a separate kingdom.
For information about the period from the Union of the Crowns (1603) to the Act of Union (1707), check out this one (other volumes of the set may also be interesting to you):
Smith, David Lawrence (1998). A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603–1707: The Double Crown, Chapter 2.
This time period includes the Plantation of Ulster, the process of colonizing northern Ireland with Scottish and mostly Protestant settlers. That’s important to the specific issue you raised about the eventual split between the 6 and 26 counties (there is no ‘Southern Ireland’). Here’s a resource to get you started on that:
A.T.Q. Stewart. The Narrow Ground: The Roots of Conflict in Ulster. 1989: London, Faber and Faber, Ltd.
For information about the Act of Union (1800) that enfolded Ireland, look at
Keogh, Dáire, and Kevin Whelan, eds. Acts of Union: The causes, contexts, and consequences of the Act of Union. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001.
Modern history is not my area of expertise, but the Penguin History noted above, or a similar overview, will provide you with references to look up and keywords to use for searches.