Granta 56: What Happened to Us?-- Britan's Valedictory Realism
Granta 56: What Happened to Us?-- Britan's Valedictory Realism
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: a dine name for a country, and almost every world of it is meaningless. United? Consider the gathering seperatism of Scotland and Wales, Irish republicanism, the anarchy of the average London bus queue. Kingdom? Queendom in fact. In any event, how long can its soiled monarchy survive? Great? Fifty years ago, 800 million people lived in colonies under the British flag. Soon-- after Hong Kong reverts to China-- there will be 168,000. Northern Ireland? Bloodily divided by its union with the above. This issue of Granta looks at a country that has rarely been so nervous-- don't mention the beef-- or so fundamentally troubled. What happened to us? Is this a nation, a way of life, saying farewell to itself? (Back of book blurb).