![]() ![]() Tolkien’s Shire makes us think England and farming coeval, but husbandry arrived late in England, circa 4000 BC. Morris calls this Thatcher’s Law, since it was Margaret Thatcher who explained in 1975 that, “We are inextricably part of Europe.” An example of Thatcher’s Law is agriculture. For much of what Churchill called “this long island story of ours,” innovations starting in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean gradually rippled outwards, slowly evening out across the European continent to finally reach Britain. The map renders symbolically a truth which memories of the Raj can make the English overlook: in the vastness of their history, the British have been recipients of trends and innovations reaching the isles from across the European land mass. This is because, like those rivers, these seas were highways, not barriers. The Channel and North Seas appear to be no wider than the Rhine and Seine. The Hereford Map, made circa 1300, places Jerusalem at its center with the British Isles at a distant edge, next to Europe. To see the outsized effects of geography, Morris builds the book around three maps. ![]() We will return to the influential Edwardian strategist soon, as Morris’s use of Mackinder is idiosyncratic. Morris tells us that, “geography’s meaning consistently depends on two things: technology, especially the branches connected with travel and communication and organization, especially the kinds that allow people to use new technologies effectively.” This is a rather particular way to understand geography that some might dispute, not least one of the stars of the book, Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947). Morris argues that this metaphysical framework shows that Nigel Farage-the British politician who led the Brexit charge-was more right than likely even he knew when he made the Brexit debate about values: “Big history suggests that identity, mobility, prosperity, security, and sovereignty were not just the top concerns in 2016: they have always been what people worry about.” Farage won the referendum because these values are how geography registers in our lives, and the effects of geography are outsized. His latest offers a geopolitical exploration of British history: “Brexit was just the latest round in an ancient argument about what Britain’s geography means.” This is “big history,” with all the juicy stuff about Caesar, Cromwell, and Churchill set inside space and time: “big history to put post-Brexit Britain into the context of post-ice-age Britain’s multi-millennium relationship with Europe and the wider world.” Our guide is Ian Morris, a British archeologist and historian teaching at Stanford, whose previous books include War! What Is It Good For? and Why the West Rules – For Now. In doing so, it sets itself apart from dozens of other accounts by allowing readers to “see the larger patterns that have driven, and continue to drive, British history.” The volume opens in 8000 BC and closes in 2017. Geography Is Destiny: Britain and the World: A 10,000-Year History places the UK’s momentous decision in the full sweep of British history. Usually, though, the focus is on the fifty years in which Britain was a member of the European Union. Many books have been written about Brexit.
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