Wales - The First and Final Colony


Book Description

Collected writings by Adam Price, leader of Plaid Cymru and one of the great thinkers in current Welsh politics. It explores the viability of Welsh independence and includes some of his most famous speeches to Parliament, offering a great assessment of the current Welsh situation as well as ideas for securing a brighter future for Wales.




Wales: England's Colony


Book Description

The Conquest, Assimilation, and Re-birth of a NationFROM THE VERY BEGINNINGS OF WALES, ITS PEOPLE HAVE DEFINED THEMSELVES AGAINST THEIR LARGE NEIGHBOUR. That relationship has defined both what it has meant to be Welsh and Wales as a nation. Yet the relationship has not always been a happy one and never one between equals. Wales was England's first colony and its conquest was by military force. It was later formally annexed, ending its separate legal status. Yet most of the Welsh reconciled themselves to their position and embraced the economic and individual opportunities being part of Britain and its Empire offered. Only in the later half of the twentieth century, in response to the decline of the Welsh language and traditional industry, did Welsh nationalism grow.This book tells the fascinating story of an uneasy and unequal relationship between two nations living side-by-side. It examines Wales' story from its creation to the present day, considering key moments such as medieval conquest, industrial exploitation, the Blue Books, and the flooding of Cwm Tryweryn.Wales: England's Colony? challenges us to reconsider Wales' historical relationship with England and its place in the world.







The Long Process of Development


Book Description

This groundbreaking book examines the history of Spain, England, the United States, and Mexico to explain why development takes centuries.










A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson


Book Description

When it is recollected how much has been written to describe the Settlement of New South Wales, it seems necessary if not to offer an apology, yet to assign a reason, for an additional publication. The embarked in the fleet which sailed to found the establishment at Botany Bay. He shortly after published a Narrative of the Proceedings and State of the Colony, brought up to the beginning of July, 1788, which was well received, and passed through three editions. This could not but inspire both confidence and gratitude; but gratitude, would be badly manifested were he on the presumption of former favour to lay claim to present indulgence. He resumes the subject in the humble hope of communicating information, and increasing knowledge, of the country, which he describes. He resided at Port Jackson nearly four years: from the 20th of January, 1788, until the 18th of December, 1791. To an active and contemplative mind, a new country is an inexhaustible source of curiosity and speculation. It was the author's custom not only to note daily occurrences, and to inspect and record the progression of improvement; but also, when not prevented by military duties, to penetrate the surrounding country in different directions, in order to examine its nature, and ascertain its relative geographical situations. The greatest part of the work is inevitably composed of those materials which a journal supplies; but wherever reflections could be introduced without fastidiousness and parade, he has not scrupled to indulge them, in common with every other deviation which the strictness of narrative would allow. When this publication was nearly ready for the press; and when many of the opinions which it records had been declared, fresh accounts from Port Jackson were received. To the state of a country, where so many anxious trying hours of his life have passed, the author cannot feel indifferent. If by any sudden revolution of the laws of nature; or by any fortunate discovery of those on the spot, it has really become that fertile and prosperous land, which some represent it to be, he begs permission to add his voice to the general congratulation. He rejoices at its success: but it is only justice to himself and those with whom he acted to declare, that they feel no cause of reproach that so complete and happy an alteration did not take place at an earlier period.




Panopticon versus New South Wales and other writings on Australia


Book Description

The present edition of Panopticon versus New South Wales and other writings on Australia consists of fragmentary comments headed ‘New Wales’, dating from 1791; a compilation of material sent to William Wilberforce in August 1802; three ‘Letters to Lord Pelham’ and ‘A Plea for the Constitution’, written in 1802–3; and ‘Colonization Company Proposal’, written in August 1831, the majority of which is published here for the first time. These writings, with the exception of ‘Colonization Company Proposal’, are intimately linked with Bentham’s panopticon penitentiary scheme, which he regarded as an immeasurably superior alternative to criminal transportation, the prison hulks, and English gaols in terms of its effectiveness in achieving the ends of punishment. He argued, moreover, that there was no adequate legal basis for the authority exercised by the Governor of New South Wales. In contrast to his opposition to New South Wales, Bentham later composed ‘Colonization Company Proposal’ in support of a scheme proposed by the National Colonization Society to establish a colony of free settlers in southern Australia. He advocated the ‘vicinity-maximizing principle’, whereby plots of land would be sold in an orderly fashion radiating from the main settlement, and suggested that, within a few years, the government of the colony should be transformed into a representative democracy.




Convicts in the Colonies


Book Description

In the eighty years between 1787 and 1868 more than 160,000 men, women and children convicted of everything from picking pockets to murder were sentenced to be transported 'beyond the seas'. These convicts were destined to serve out their sentences in the empire's most remote colony: Australia. Through vivid real-life case studies and famous tales of the exceptional and extraordinary, Convicts in the Colonies narrates the history of convict transportation to Australia - from the first to the final fleet. Using the latest original research, Lucy Williams reveals a fascinating century-long history of British convicts unlike any other. Covering everything from crime and sentencing in Britain and the perilous voyage to Australia, to life in each of the three main penal colonies - New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and Western Australia - this book charts the lives and experiences of the men and women who crossed the world and underwent one of the most extraordinary punishment in history.




Why Wales Never Was


Book Description

Written as an act of protest in a Welsh-speaking community in north-west Wales, Why Wales Never Was combines a devastating analysis of the historical failure of Welsh nationalism with an apocalyptic vision of a non-Welsh future. It is the ‘progressive’ nature of Welsh politics and the ‘empire of the civic’, which rejects both language and culture, that prevents the colonised from rising up against his colonial master. Wales will always be a subjugated nation until modes of thought, dominant since the nineteenth century, are overturned. Originally a comment on Welsh acquiescence to Britishness at the time of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the book’s emphasis on the importance of European culture is a parable for Brexit times. Both deeply rooted in Welsh culture and European in scope, Why Wales Never Was brings together history, philosophy and politics in a way never tried before in Wales. First published in Welsh in 2015, Why Wales Never Was affirms the author’s reputation as one of the most radical writers in Wales today.




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