The last Brexit occurred with the Reformation in 1535, when England declared itself independent of Europe by breaking with Rome. With another change in the offing, it¡¯s useful to reflect on the maritime border separating the UK from the Continent. According to Napoleon¡¯s propagandist, Jean-Louis Dubroca, ¡°Nature has placed England and France in a geographical location which must necessarily set up an eternal rivalry between them.¡± This rivalry hinders progress. It also conceals cooperation.

The Communist Manifesto boldly declared the bourgeoisie to have ¡°accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals¡±, an optimistic assessment undermined when plans for a Channel Tunnel at the end of the 19th century were scuppered by invasion fears. Writing in 1913, Lenin asked: ¡°What then is holding the matter up? Britain is afraid of ¨C invasion!...Capitalist barbarism is stronger than civilisation¡±.

As Renaud Morieux observes, ¡°the mainstream historiographical model of Anglo-French relations, centred on hostility and hatred, revolves around the idea of the Channel as a barrier¡±. Morieux confronts this pessimistic vision of Anglo-French relations as characterised chiefly by conflict. The Channel can be viewed as a channel of commerce and communication, bridge rather than barrier, depending on political perspective or historical moment. Morieux¡¯s advantage over other historians is that he sees the Channel from both sides, taking issue not only with the British ¡°Island story¡± but also the equally chauvinist standpoint of French commentators on ¡°La Manche¡±.

Morieux picks a period when the myth of the Channel as a site of struggle is strongest, then ranges across a much wider history to argue that the negative narrative that held sway since the Norman Conquest ¨C the Channel as offering access to invaders ¨C is only half the story. According to Morieux, ¡°the first geographical use of the English word ¡®channel¡¯ to refer to the sea comes in the second part of Shakespeare¡¯s Henry VI¡±. Another Shakespeare history play, Richard II, captures beautifully the English attitude to a maritime frontier ¡°Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house¡±.

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That this ¡°sceptred isle¡± image survives changing historiographical trends is the key to Morieux¡¯s study, which sees the Channel as a zone of contact, not conflict. Even in a century marked by war and suspicion, it functioned as ¡°a visible reminder of a very ancient connection between England and France¡±. For Morieux, Enlightenment views complicate the tale of competing Empires, with transcultural exchanges as likely as exchanges of artillery: ¡°The idea that the two countries once belonged to the same land mass, separated over time, was part of a broader interrogation which coloured eighteenth-century thought: when, how and why was this world, once integrated, segmented?¡± Morieux offers a useful corrective to the new British history or ¡°archipelagic studies¡±, whose challenge to Anglocentric history has a tendency to overlook Europe. It¡¯s a clich¨¦ to say a book is timely, but in the midst of another debate on borders this book presents a bigger picture.

Willy Maley is professor of Renaissance studies, University of Glasgow.

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The Channel: England, France and the Construction of a Maritime Border in the Eighteenth Century
By Renaud Morieux
Cambridge University Press, 418pp, ?74.99
ISBN 9781107039490
Published 31 March 2016