This Little Britain: How One Small Country Changed the Modern World

Celebratory, witty, and incredibly insightful, Harry Bingham explores the eccentricities and customs of the British nation in a bid to answer a question that has everyone debating – Who are we?

A Nation of Paradoxes

For the British, ‘Who are we?’ is an oddly difficult question. While our national self-assessment usually highlights a number of good points—we’re inventive, tolerant, and at least we’re not French—it also unleashes a torrent of criticisms:

• Our society is fragmented and degenerate.
• Our kids are thugs, our workers ill-educated, and our public services abysmal.
• We drink too much.
• House prices are crazy, politicians are sleazy, roads are jammed, and the football team is rubbish.

When The Times invited readers to suggest new designs for the backs of British coins, one reader cynically proposed: “How about a couple of yobs dancing on a car bonnet or a trio of legless ladettes in the gutter?”

Reasons to Be Proud

Is there really nothing to be proud of? Quite the contrary. British contributions to the world have been monumental:

• Innovations and Inventions: From the steam engine to the world wide web, British inventors have given us marvels we now take for granted.
• Medical and Public Health Breakthroughs: Vaccination, integrated mains sewerage, and antiseptic surgery have saved more lives than all other medical innovations combined.
• Global Influence:
  • The British Empire once covered a quarter of the earth’s surface, wielding its power with an army smaller than Switzerland’s.
  • The English language has become the world’s lingua franca.
  • Parliamentary democracy, with its ideals of liberty and representative government, has inspired nations worldwide.
  • Legal principles like habeas corpus, trial by jury, and the abolition of torture owe much to British influence.

Britain’s Role in a Changing World

If the modern world is richer, freer, more peaceful, more democratic, and healthier than it once was, then Britain has played a leading role in that transformation.

This book delves into the many things Britain did first, best, most, or was the only one ever to do. It celebrates the oddities that spread across the globe—from football to the rule of law—and examines how this small country has made an outsized impact on the modern world.