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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.
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.
From the very beginnings of Wales, its people have defined themselves against their large neighbour. Wales: England's Colony? shows, that relationship has not only defined what it has meant to be Welsh, it has also been central to making and defining Wales as a nation. Yet the relationship between the two nations 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.
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.
FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT IN 1788, TO AUGUST 1801: WITH REMARKS ON THE DISPOSITIONS, CUSTOMS, MANNERS, etc. OF THE NATIVE INHABITANTS 200 OF THAT COUNTRY.
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.
The period since 1939 saw more rapid and significant change than any other time in Welsh history. Wales developed a more assertive identity of its own and some of the apparatus of a nation state. Yet its economy floundered between boom and bust, its traditional communities were transformed and the Welsh language and other aspects of its distinctiveness were undermined by a globalizing world. Wales was also deeply divided by class, language, ethnicity, gender, religion and region. Its people grew wealthier, healthier and more educated but they were not always happier. This ground-breaking book examines the story of Wales since 1939, giving voice to ordinary people and the variety of experiences within the nation. This is a history of not just a nation, but of its residents’ hopes and fears, their struggles and pleasures and their views of where they lived and the wider world.
