From Cool Britannia to Brexit: A History of Britain Since 1997

The 2016 referendum on Brexit represents a watershed moment in the United Kingdom’s contemporary history, reflecting new divides and questioning many of the premises on which the country’s identity and position in the world had been based for almost half a century.

From Cool Britannia to Brexit discusses and analyses the last three decades of British political history, looking at why Britain found itself shut out from its immediate neighbours on the continent in 2016, twenty years after the country was celebrated as a prosperous, optimistic and culturally influential ’Cool Britannia’. This book ultimately shows the limits of the Westminster model of government and the enduring inequalities that affect Britain, but also insists on the resilience of its state and institutions.

This book is primarily aimed at an undergraduate and non-specialist audience. It explores the long-term political, economic and social changes which have affected the British polity in the early 21st century, which led to a dramatic decision in 2016, and in turn created more instability and political turbulence.

Pauline Schnapper is Professor of British Politics at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. Her research covers in particular British European policy and post-Brexit politics. Her most recent publications include La Politique au Royaume-Uni, coll. Repères, Paris, La Découverte, 2022 and Helen Drake, ＂’We thought we were friends’ Franco-British Bilateral Diplomacy and the Shock of Brexit＂, Journal of Contemporary European Research, vol. 17, n° 4, 2021.

Thibaud Harrois is Senior Lecturer in British Politics at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. His research focuses on British foreign and security policy. His latest publications include ’The politicisation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy in the British domestic debate on Brexit: a challenge to EU-UK foreign and security cooperation’ (2023).