Why We Need to Promote the Study of Britain in
the USA
Speech given by Professor and former CBS Director
James
Vernon at the
University of California
Trust (UK) Alumni Associations of the University of California
Reception in the House of Commons Member’s Dining Room
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Although
I am a historian of 19th century politics I promise not to
do a Gladstone and make this, my maiden speech in the
Commons, 3 hours long! Instead, I shall very briefly discuss
the fall and rise of British studies in the USA and its consequences
for broader trans-Atlantic relations between Britain and
America.
Until the 1940s the study of Britain occupied a prominent
position in the American academy. Britain was still a super
power and it was not just Anglophiles who believed in a common
Anglo-American tradition. Yet, ironically, the study of Britain
in the US has been in sharp decline since the very forging
of the special relationship when Roosevelt and Churchill
signed the Atlantic Charter in 1941.
There are two reasons
for this decline of interest in Britain. First, a greater
focus on other, previously neglected, parts
of the world that needed to be understood because they were
strategically important to the US during the Cold War — the
era of area studies. Secondly, the legacies of America¹s
colonial history, and the idea of an Anglo-American tradition,
has become less important to America as the population diversified
with immigrants from Europe, Latin America and Asia.
In recent
years this trend has been helped by the FCO's promotion of
UK PLC, trade and commerce has taken priority
over any cultural mission. Even the British Council now focuses
on promoting the British arts and educational industries,
not the broader study of Britain and its relationship to
the US. Whereas other European governments support the academic
study of their nation, Britain sadly does not (whichever
party is in power). Indeed, British Studies is not even a
recognizable term in the UK — not surprisingly given that
the question of why studying Britain matters (over say China,
Mexico or France) is obviously not important here.
In the
US this question really does matter, especially in California
where attentions are focused upon the Pacific,
not the Atlantic, world, even though LA and San Francisco
are equidistant from London and Tokyo.
So what are the consequences
of this decline?
When I moved
to Berkeley 4 years ago I found students in California knew
much about British pop groups and movie stars
but only had a vague sense of the special relationship between
Britain and America, and an even vaguer sense of Britain's
historical and contemporary contribution to American politics,
economics, law and culture. It has taken a while to teach
some that Wales is a place, not a mammal. Of course, ignorance
is a two-way street. Students in Britain often know just
as little about America.
There is then a big cultural deficit
on both sides of the Atlantic — one I believe has important
implications for the
future of the special relationship. It is hard to think of
a time when that relationship has been so strained, and while
there are many reasons for this, the cultural estrangement
I have been discussing does not help the mutual incomprehension
or parodying of positions on both sides.
Clearly promoting
British Studies in the US is no immediate remedy to this
complex problem, but the time for complacently
assuming that Americans are all tuned into the BBC and wedded
to a common Anglo-American community is long gone.
But this
dark age provides a moment opportunity. In America, Britain
is not only strategically important again, but historically
interesting. It too was a dominant world power and Americans
are anxious that its international engagements in former
British colonies may prove its demise. Niall Ferguson¹s
book on the burden’s of empire has become a best seller.
There
are then very early signs of a renewed interest in British
Studies. A new generation of scholars no longer study
Britain as an insular island story with a model of modernization
all must follow, they emphasize instead its tangled but cosmopolitan
relationships with Europe and America, as well as its extraordinary
imperial past and post-imperial present. We Brits know a
thing or too about globalization!
I am pleased to say that
the University of California is at the forefront of this
revival of British Studies. Two
years ago the Berkeley campus established a Center for British
Studies that has been remarkably successful in making Britain
a more visible and exciting place to study — a fact recognized
by the Mellon Foundation awarding us their first programmatic
grant for British Studies last month. We’ve supported
several academic conferences (including two in Oxford on
access in higher education and the reform of the Lords and
Senate), organized many public lectures (several by scholars,
civil servants and politicians from the UK), hosted visiting
Select Committees, but most importantly our undergraduate
and graduate enrollments are up.
A key part of our mission
is to create a new generation of students interested in,
and knowledgeable about, Britain.
We encourage undergraduate and graduate research on Britain
through essay prizes, summer research grants, and exchange
schemes. We find that many students taking our undergraduate
classes then spend a summer or year on UC¹s Education
Abroad Program in the UK. On their return they are eager
to get involved at the Center and often go on to further
graduate study or return to the UK to visit friends. I like
to think that above all it is this traffic that not only
helps make good that cultural deficit, but establishes relationships
and professional networks that are both academically, politically,
and commercially beneficial to both Britain and America.
