Index | Next Record | Browse
For Pricing and Availability Click Here

Identity of England ISBN: 0199269947 ISBN13: 9780199269945 Identity of England By: Robert Colls Publisher: Oxford University Press Format: Paperback Our Price: 22.00

  Table of contents:

The English stand now in need of a new sense of home and belonging - a reassessment of who they are. This is a history of who they were, written from the perspective of the twenty-first century. It begins by considering how the English state identified an English nation which, from very early days, seems to have seen itself as not simply the creature of state or king. It considers also how in modern times the English nation survived shattering revolutions in technology, urban living, and global conflict, while at the same time retaining a softer, more human vision of themselves as a people in touch with their nature and their land. They claimed that there was more to living in England than work and wages, there was more to running a vast empire than just exploiting it. For all its faults and inequalities, they identified with their state. For all their shortcomings they were confident of their place in history. As little as forty years ago, these ideas were not much in doubt. Though vague and often contradictory, they held together as the English people held together -as a whole. Indeed, 'Englishness' was hardly recognized as a subject for analysis, except perhaps in a rather ironic and self-mocking vein. But now 'the national question' is back and history is at the top of the agenda. From a rich store of historical memory and possibility, Robert Colls connects the identity of England in the past with the changing and uncertain identity of England today.


Contents:

Introduction
- BUILDING THE NATION
- 1

The Law Becomes You
- 2

Uniting the Kingdoms
- 3

Constituting the Modern Nation
- EXTENDING THE STATE
- 4 Modern Gentlemanly Progress
- 5 The Nation over Itself
- 6 Colonials
- 7

Women and Workers
- 8

Loyalties
- POST-IMPERIAL REFORMATION
- 9

Forward March Halted
- 10

Imagined Nation
- 11

Reconstituting the Nation
- Bridgehead
- BUILDING THE HOMELAND
- 12

England as a Garden
- 13

Wasteland
- 14

Island
- 15

Natives
- 16

Journeys
- ABSORBING THE PEOPLE
- 17

Celts
- 18

National Properties
- 19

Common People
- 20

Left-over People
- ENGLAND NOW
- 21

Anarchy in the UK?
- 22

Thinking with England
- Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index


Brief Description:

Only 40 years ago, English identity was not in question. Now, as certainty has given way to concern and every aspect of national life is changing with revolutionary speed, the 'national question' is back on the agenda. Robert Colls's Identity of England tells the long and fascinating history of this old and powerful idea.

For Pricing and Availability Click Here

Static Book Details Page - Click Here to go to BookFellas Book Store Home Page