British Scholar: Kumar - "The Making of English National Identity"

The Making of English National Identity
Krishan Kumar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 367 pages

Krishan Kumar, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, achieves a major coup in his book. He makes the
study of English national identity mind-numbingly tedious. If The Making… proves useful for future
generations of identity scholars it will be as a comprehensive literature review. Kumar effectively
recapitulates the arguments of every author who contributed to the formation or analysis of English
identity, from the Venerable Bede to Adrian Hastings. However, a major shortcoming reveals itself when
Kumar attempts to undermine many of the arguments. Liah Greenfeld, writing in the early 1990s, posited
that English national identity formed as a result of the coming of Protestantism, and the consequent focus
on mass literacy, during King Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Kumar rejects her notion outright stating,
rather weakly, that Protestantism fuelled by literacy could not create a distinct, mythical English nation
because the vast majority of the English populace suffered from illiteracy. He then, erroneously, moves on
historically without investigating the plausibility of the formation of English national identity under the
direction of Henry VIII’s propaganda minister Thomas Cromwell. While Greenfeld’s main reason for placing
the formation of English national identity in the sixteenth century proves questionable, she accurately
dates its inception. English national identity emerged as a propaganda tool of Thomas Cromwell to turn
the educated elites, and slowly the masses, away from their long-standing connection to the Catholic
Continent and Rome. Cromwell employed Protestantism as a means to an end.

While Kumar’s work may prove conducive to curing insomnia, he does make a few good points. First, he
gives a learned outline of the difference between political and cultural nations. Secondly, his concise
explanation of the differences between English and British and nation and state nicely sets up a book that
quickly finds itself overcome by turgid prose. Unfortunately, his chronological placement of the inception of
English national identity at the end of the nineteenth century, the overarching thesis of the book, failed to
convince this reviewer. Kumar’s work is useful to anyone looking for a strong introduction to the literature
on identity politics in Britain. But he fails to produce a solid contribution to the literature that he so adroitly
reviews.