"When Britain left the European Union in January 2021, it set out on a new journey. Shorn of empire and now the EU too, Britain's economy is as national as it has ever been. A decade or so since globalisation seemed inevitable, this is a remarkable reversal. How did this happen? This book argues that this "nationalisation" - aligning the boundaries of the state with its national peoples - emerged from the 2008 global financial crisis. The book analyses how austerity and scarcity intensified and created new conflicts over who gets what. This extends to struggle over what the British nation is for, who it represents, and who it values. In analysing the thread that ties the fallout of the crash and austerity, through Brexit, and to the shape of lockdown politics, Britain Alone provides an incisive and original history of the last decade of Britain and its relationship to the global economy"-- Taken from publisher's website.