Analysis of Britons

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Patriotism is often described as love and respect for your country. Because patriotism is such an abstract term it can be shown in many varying forms. This is very evident in Linda Colley’s Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. She provides a multitude of ways that the Britons showed their love and respect for their country. As I took the examples in the book it appeared that people of the time saw patriotism as more of a mix between viewing patriotism as unquestioning loyalty to country and the idea of challenging the existing nature rather than people just merely showing love and respect. Therefore in terms of this book patriotism was about loving where you were from but challenging to have your fair say in looking over that same place.

In the introduction to Britons, Colley makes a point that being a patriot was a way to claim the right to have a part in the political life and a way to demand more access to citizenship. Multiple portions of the book came back to rehash on this point. The course of this book follows history from how Protestantism rose up to be the official religion all the way up to women wanting to be involved in political matters.

In the first chapter we see how those of the Catholic and Protestant religions have to face the struggles associated with being part of an ever religiously changing nation. In the early days of the nation known as Briton the national religion would change each time the ruler would. That of course would have caused great instability in what was slowly becoming the national identity.

Take the ruling line of the Tudors for instance. Henry VIII started out as a Catholic king but when he couldn’t get his way part of the way through his rule he started the Anglican Church. After...

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...ize her actions. Therefore, the idea of having separate spheres was reinforced unfortunately by her actions. In the end of it all though, if all of the actions and ideals were looked into, women were very critical to the identity of the nation. If women were not going to do their duty as it were, the nation would have crumbled without someone to teach the new generation their roles.

In conclusion, the various struggles that were covered in the course of Britons showed how the identity of a nation and patriotism were tied into challenging things around you so that you can truly feel like you belong. To truly feel patriotic was to feel like you were exactly where you belonged in the world and you had a say in what happened to you. All the turmoil was just the various groups of people asserting their place and getting more control over things that would affect them.

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