Macfarlane

The English were Fill in the blank 1 of 9 by people on the continent, for example, as a peculiar people. Voltaire, when he Fill in the blank 2 of 9 to England famously said, ‘I have Fill in the blank 3 of 9 to a civilisation which in no way Fill in the blank 4 of 9 my own’, i.e. France.

So you can just Fill in the blank 5 of 9 through them. I’ll just Fill in the blank 6 of 9 through them very quickly.

The first is political. The trend of centralised feudalism, which was traditional in England as a political system and which then Fill in the blank 7 of 9 into the first modern democracy, is unique. Except, according to Marc Bloch , Japan, which had a very similar political system for a long time, but it didn’t have democracy.

So the political system is unique and that’s why it Fill in the blank 8 of 9 all over the world and why it Fill in the blank 9 of 9 to the foundation of America and everything else.

Secondly, its language is unique. It obviously Fill in the blank 1 of 8 with Dutch and Scandinavian and so on and so on, but it has various unique features and is very long and continuous, since the Anglo-Saxons. And that’s the second reason why it’s Fill in the blank 2 of 8 all over the world.

The third is that its legal system is unique. The common law system and, again, other additions, such as the system of trusts and so on, is unique. Although, obviously, it was then Fill in the blank 3 of 8 to America and there’s an overlap there, but it’s totally different from the Roman law tradition of the continent.

Its economic system is unique. It’s the first capitalist society, Fill in the blank 4 of 8 back a thousand years. In other words, a society which Fill in the blank 5 of 8 off the economy from the society, as Max Weber Fill in the blank 6 of 8 , and has extensive use of money and markets, has a fully Fill in the blank 7 of 8 private property system from 800 years ago, and so is capitalist two, three centuries before (famous historian) Fill in the blank 8 of 8 it was.

Its religion is unique. The kind of Puritan Protestant religion from the 16th century, and even before, it had tinges of all that, it Fill in the blank 1 of 7 , obviously, with the Dutch and so on, but there are distinctive features to the religion.

Its poetry is unique. It’s Fill in the blank 2 of 7 to be (one of) the two greatest poetic traditions, to my mind, the other Fill in the blank 3 of 7 the Chinese, which, if you Fill in the blank 4 of 7 in with the drama, Shakespeare and so on, Fill in the blank 5 of 7 that English literature is read and spread all over the world.

Those are some of them, and I could go on, but I’ll just Fill in the blank 6 of 7 two… three that are famous. One is its children’s stories. There’s no other country in the world that Fill in the blank 7 of 7 the kind of Harry Potter-type, Winnie-the-Willows-type, Alice in Wonderland-type children’s stories. Other traditions have other kinds of children’s stories, but not those.

The second is its humour. It’s unique. The kind of irony and deadpan and completely mad Monty Python, like all the satirical tradition Fill in the blank 1 of 9 back to Pope and Dryden and so on. And everyone says, when they Fill in the blank 2 of 9 to England, the first thing you need to learn is how to Fill in the blank 3 of 9 a joke or how to Fill in the blank 4 of 9 a joke.

And then the last thing is its games tradition, the reason why the modern religion of the world, which is football, is so important. It Fill in the blank 5 of 9 from England. It was Fill in the blank 6 of 9 in England. Most of the team games, cricket and so on, were Fill in the blank 7 of 9 or Fill in the blank 8 of 9 sometime, like hockey from Scotland. So games playing is another feature.

So the culture, the society, the economy and the ideology are all unique in the sense that they are more Fill in the blank 9 of 9 in a certain direction than in other countries. Obviously, there’s an overlap with, say, lowland Scotland or, say, Holland or Scandinavia.