Tag: Politics
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The Treachery of 1847: How the “Blue Books” Colonised the Welsh Mind

In 1847 three substantial parliamentary reports were laid before Westminster under the unromantic title Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales. Their blue covers gave them their enduring popular name, the “Blue Books”, and their conclusions, or at least the spirit in which those conclusions were delivered, detonated across…
Antony David Davies
19th-century-wales, anglicisation, Blue Books 1847, books, Brad y Llyfrau Gleision, British state and Wales, Chapel culture, class and respectability, cultural assimilation, cultural colonisation, cultural trauma, Cymraeg, education, education in Wales, gender and nationhood, heritage and identity, Historical memory, History, history of Wales, industrial Wales, internalised oppression, language shift, language suppression, Nonconformity, parliamentary inquiry, Politics, politics of language, postcolonial Wales, psychological colonisation, Rebecca Riots, Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry 1847, Rural Wales, social reform, Victorian morality, victorian-wales, Wales and England relations, Welsh Chapels, Welsh culture, Welsh devolution context, Welsh education history, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh language, Welsh nationalism, Welsh women, writing -
Why the English and the Welsh Keep Misunderstanding Each Other — And Why It Still Shapes Modern Britain

We talk endlessly about the politics of the Union, the economics of devolution, and the future of the UK. But beneath all of that lies a quieter, deeper truth: The English and the Welsh speak the same language, but not the same culture.And because no one acknowledges this, we constantly misread each other. These aren’t…
Antony David Davies
behavioural culture, bilingualism, British culture, British identity, communication styles, cross-border relations, cultural differences, cultural literacy, cultural misunderstanding, Devolution, england, English culture, English history, English identity, English values, History, identity politics, inter-cultural communication, language, National identity, national stereotypes, Offa’s Dyke, Politics, social psychology, soft power, UK nations, Wales, Welsh culture, Welsh diaspora, Welsh history, Welsh identity, Welsh values, Welsh vs English, workplace-culture, writing