At a time when pundits are taking to the pages of even left-leaning British papers like the Observer to deem multiculturalism a “great betrayal” of the white working classes and to lament the loss of a positive, visible, and stable form of white Englishness (Tim Lott, “White, Working Class—and Threatened with Extinction,” Independent, 9 March 2008), Robert J. C. Young's The Idea of English Ethnicity has never been more needed. In this compelling, impeccably researched, and eminently readable study, Young demonstrates that the singular and pure concept of English identity whose loss is now so widely reported never really existed in the first place. And he proves this controversial thesis through a series of fascinating and expertly supported arguments, showing that throughout the nineteenth century the English were far more likely to define themselves as Saxon or Celt than “English” until the exigencies of empire forced them to invent a brand-name identity that would strengthen the sympathetic bonds between the expat and domestic communities. “Englishness,” writes Young, “was created for the diaspora—an ethnic identity designed for those who were precisely not English, but rather of English descent—the peoples of the English diaspora moving around the world: Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, even, at a pinch, the English working class” (1). He then claims that it is this always-already diffused, heterogeneous, and hybrid nature of Englishness, rather than multiculturalism, that causes white working-class anxieties about cultural loss and erasure; “the global identity created for the ethnic English may account for why, with the resurgence of minor nationalism in the UK since the 1980s, there was no specific language of English identity available for the people of England” (xii). One of the (many) pleasures of this book is imagining the sheer apoplexy into which it would throw British National Party (BNP) chairman Nick Griffin, whose entire political career has been staked on valorizing the apparently primal white English unity that Young here exposes as a myth.

So if there was no originary, long-standing, and consensus-achieving category of racial Englishness that only, as BNP rhetoric would have it, began to fall apart with the arrival of the Windrush generation, then what existed instead? According to Young, only a constantly changing and often contradictory set of plural English identities based on shifting taxonomies of language, physiognomy, geography, class, “temperament,” history, and religion. He opens with a chapter on Saxonism, the predominant discourse of English identity in the early nineteenth century, which argued that England's population was primarily composed of the manly, prudent, and practical descendants of the German Saxons who migrated to Britain around the fourth century AD. Subsequent chapters describe the various successful challenges to Saxonism throughout the ensuing century, first from Irish nationalists and Celtic revivalists, and then from the Victorian philological and biological sciences whose findings repeatedly demonstrated that the English were “irreducibly mixed” (50) rather than racially or linguistically pure. Young traces the impact of key figures and institutions such as Robert Knox, The Times, and Matthew Arnold on emergent concepts of English identity, showing how by the end of the century the essentialist figure of the primal Saxon Englishman had been replaced in the popular imagination by the fundamentally more flexible and hybrid figure of the Anglo-Saxon. “Anglo-Saxon,” notes Young, “was a more general category, which could imply both a mixed race and a race beyond England, while still invoking a common racial and cultural origin in the Anglo-Saxons. … It was, possibly, the first hyphenated identity” (180–81). This is a controversial and intriguing statement indeed, one of the many that run through The Idea of English Ethnicity. Indeed, I cannot remember the last time that I read such a highly original book on what might seem like a relatively well-trammeled topic. Victorian Englishness and racial ideology have been the subject of innumerable studies over the past decades, but none that I can think of have the freshness, innovation, and authority of this book. The Idea of English Ethnicity can and should change the way we think about Englishness and Empire alike.

Young's prose is as lucid and coherent as his arguments are innovative. Writing in a manner that is unfortunately all too rare in the academy these days, he announces his thesis early and signposts it frequently, deftly linking the new material to the larger systems of ideas on which the book is premised. The result is a highly intelligent book on an important subject that can be enjoyed by readers both inside and outside of the academy. He further animates his already dynamic and eloquent style with vivid bursts of humor. We are told, for example, that Liberal politician Charles Wentworth Dilke suffered a “pathological fear of the banana” (204); earlier, when commenting on the curious elevation of Saxon King Harold to hero status despite his loss at the Battle of Hastings, Young concludes that the King represented “an image of heroic failure that itself presented a form of narrative of which the English would become particularly fond, perversely preferring heroic defeat to success itself—endemic to a whole succession of English heroes—Gordon of Khartoum, Scott of the Antarctic, and a role now frequently taken over by the England team in the European and World Cups” (19). This ability to adroitly and humorously link historical phenomena to trends in contemporary popular British culture keeps us attuned to the relevance of the argument. As a result, The Idea of English Ethnicity is everything that a first-rate work of criticism should be—sharp, original, lucid, important, and enjoyable.

Let me conclude with a brief note of disappointment, lest my enthusiasm seem unbalanced. In book's final section, Young uses his well-evidenced findings on the heterogeneity of ethnic Englishness to advance a somewhat premature and arguably quixotic conclusion. The always-already hybrid nature of Englishness, he argues, is responsible for the tolerance and inclusiveness that continues to characterize modern British society:

It seems to me that estimations of England's successful achievement of a “tolerant multi-racial society” vary greatly depending on whom you talk to. I can’t imagine that the families of Stephen Lawrence or Peyman Bahmani would find much to recognize in this rosy picture of a preeminently welcoming and uniquely (within Europe at least) antiracist England. This is not to say that there haven’t been significant triumphs for cultural and ethnic inclusion within England in the last century; yet in a current period when the fraying edges of this much-touted tolerance are all too clearly visible, isn’t it potentially irresponsible to ignore or minimize Britain's intensifying anti-immigration backlash? Might not the real point here be that racist violence and anti-immigrant sentiment might be perfectly well, if paradoxically, accommodated within a tradition of national identity that claims to prize mixture, inclusion, and heterogeneity? If Britain is ever to achieve the truly pluralistic and inclusive society whose ideology Young so admirably sketches out, it cannot afford to prematurely congratulate itself on its arrival.