The End of British Politics?; Acknowledgements; Contents; 1 Introduction: Imagining and Reimagining 'Britain'; Notes; 2 The State Created; A Providential People; A Messianic State; Providentialism Without Religion; The Triumph of the Metropolitan British State; Social Citizenship and British Identity: Providentialism Without Empire; Statecraft and State Mission; Notes; 3 The State in Decay; The Decay of British Social Citizenship; The Decay of the Metropolitan Elite; The Decay of the World State; The Decay of the Unionist Settlement; Inventing and Reinventing the State; Notes

4 The State RecreatedCreative Statecraft and the Reinvention of Britain; Recasting the Post-War Settlement; Reshaping State-Civil Society Relations; Reshaping the Constitution; Recreating British Identity; Statecraft and the Recreation of the State; Notes; 5 The End of the State?; The Millennium as a Climactic Moment; The Crisis of the British Economy; The Crisis of the British Party System; The Sundered Union and the Crisis of Providentialism; The Failure of European Identity; Devolution: The Unstable Settlement; No End of a Lesson? The Climax of Military Providentialism

Waking from a NightmareNotes; References; Index