Stephen Conway’s declared aim is to redress an imbalance in current work on eighteenth-century British and Irish history. In recent years, the study of the period has been marked by paradigms that play down the European dimensions of British and Irish experience: Imperial history, diaspora studies, four-nations history, archipelagic and Atlantic approaches situate the British Isles in international contexts that largely bypass the continent. As Conway himself recognises, such perceptions partly originate in the eighteenth century itself: the period witnessed, among other things, the expansion of the Empire, the cultivation of exceptionalism by a self-styled Protestant and modern nation, and – a factor that historians, including Conway, sometimes overlook – the growing self-confidence of the English language. For all this, a keen awareness of European realities and of British and Irish embeddedness in a European community of nations was still observable in many aspects of life. Conway’s achievement is to provide a wide-ranging synthesis of recent work and original research that showcases British and Irish subjects’ many ways of engaging with the continent and of perceiving themselves as Europeans.
Conway’s subtitle is both a strength and a weakness: while queries inevitably arise as to whether ‘similarities’ and ‘connections’ always imply a shared sense of ‘identity’, the sheer amount and the diversity of the material covered here make for fascinating reading. Conway pays attention in turn to constitutional and political theory, foreign policy, finance and trade, polite society, intellectual cultures, religious ties, the grand tour, earning a living abroad, the merchant marine and the Royal Navy, and the military (his own specialism). Statistical charts alternate with anecdotes drawn from archival research, snippets from the press, and biographical sketches that serve as case studies – including a portrait of Jeremy Bentham as a genuinely European thinker. Not only does this make the book eminently readable, but Conway manages to show how a sense of Europe permeated both individual minds and the public sphere at large – one of the very defining features of eighteenth-century Britain.
The material is marshalled with assurance and elegance, and only a minor amount of repetition. The result is a splendid introduction for lay readers. Some topics, such as Irish enrolments in continental armies and universities, may be quite familiar to specialists of the period, but they too will ponder on the book’s more striking arguments. To give a few examples: statistics about volumes of trade or troops committed abroad qualify the entrenched view that Britain turned decisively towards the Empire in the second half of the eighteenth century; a case is made for an East/West divide in British seaports, with Eastern ports such as Hull showing a clear orientation towards Europe throughout the period; Frederick the Great of Prussia became one of the most popular heroes of British newspapers; the British government justified its foreign policy by harping on themes such as the ‘Liberties of Europe’ and European Protestant solidarity, indirectly revealing just how popular such ideas were among the British public; sailors and soldiers, often associated with Imperial Britain in the popular imagination, were in fact bound by professional codes that they shared with continental counterparts, and that created a European solidarity among the professions.
Conway’s scrupulousness as an eighteenth-century historian does not preclude indirect, provocative forays into quasi-anachronistic debates. Readers of the European Review will readily spot the contemporary implications of the plans that some eighteenth-century Britons put forward for a European ‘diet or parliament’, a common court based on laws acknowledged throughout the continent, or even, in wilder moments, a European common currency. Still, Conway is not simply peddling a Europhile message disguised as a historical survey. For one thing, he insists that identities are not mutually exclusive or hierarchical: he explicitly views identities as facets of a diamond that can shine with varying brightness according to which light catches the gem. His conclusion is not that eighteenth-century British and Irish subjects were often Europeans first, but that many of them felt truly European in specific circumstances. Neither does Conway idealize the European identity that he discerns. While it was sometimes redolent of peace-promoting cosmopolitanism, it was not infrequently an expression of racial superiority or religious intolerance towards a variety of ‘others’. Any contemporary relevance that this ambivalence may have is left for readers to ponder.
Conway’s sense of identities as facets of a diamond has undeniable appeal and explanatory power, but one may sometimes wonder whether the gems he shows here have not been cut to fit the present-day debates that motivated the writing of the book. He seems too ready at times to see a ‘European’ identity in expressions of transnational fellow-feeling that either fall short of encompassing Europe as a whole (as when a British merchant identifies with Iberian counterparts), or that should logically include North America. Conway makes much of British officers condemning American rebels as savages, but such insults were routinely levelled at the Irish (who, despite the title, do not get systematic attention throughout the book) and were sometimes directed at other Europeans. Conway himself also shows that Americans could be treated as equals or brothers. Europe’s internal divisions on the one hand, and its membership of the West on the other hand, occasionally unsettle Conway’s otherwise compelling narrative: in this too, the continuities between the eighteenth century and our own time remain instructive.
