Five Possible Ways to Kill a State
Neal Ascherson
- BuyVanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe by Norman Davies
Allen Lane, 830 pp, £30.00, October 2011, ISBN 978 1 84614 338 0
‘Don’t you come that stuff, Jim Garland. We always were English and we’ll always be English, and it’s just because we are English that we’re sticking up for our right to be Burgundians!’ Those were famous lines, from a half-forgotten film made in a vanished kingdom. The Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico was shown in 1949, in a battered, dirty, rationed Britain which was nonetheless confident that the old United Kingdom had a happy and glorious future. Why, the war had just shown that Britain was invincible, with a little help from Uncle Joe and the Yanks. And indestructible, for all the Luftwaffe’s efforts. Unlike some other ropey foreign places which had vanished or come to bits under the strain.
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Vol. 33 No. 24 · 15 December 2011 » Neal Ascherson » Five Possible Ways to Kill a State
pages 3-8 | 3540 words