Drawing on current debates on secessions within the United Kingdom, this book analyses the British State today and looks at its place in the future. Featuring original contributions from a variety of disciplines, this study tackles the problem of defining and studying the state and looks at the role the nation-state has played as the basic political unit in Europe and throughout the world.
Richard English is a historian from Northern Ireland. He was born in Belfast in 1963. His father, Donald English (1930–1998) was a prominent Methodist preacher. He studied as an undergraduate at Keble College, Oxford, and subsequently at Keele University, where he was awarded a PhD in History. He was first employed by the Politics Department at Queen's University Belfast in 1990 and became a professor in 1999. He is currently teaching at the University of St Andrews.