Distinguishing four sources of power in human societies – ideological, economic, military and political – The Sources of Social Power traces their interrelations throughout human history In this first volume, Michael Mann examines interrelations between these elements from neolithic times, through ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the classical Mediterranean age and medieval Europe, up to just before the Industrial Revolution in England It offers explanations of the emergence of the state and social stratification; of city-states, militaristic empires and the persistent interaction between them; of the world salvation religions; and of the particular dynamism of medieval and early modern Europe It ends by generalizing about the nature of overall social development, the varying forms of social cohesion and the role of classes and class struggle in history First published in 1986, this new edition of Volume 1 includes a new preface by the author examining the impact and legacy of the work

The sources of social power

Starting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and continuing up to the present, Imagining the Balkans covers the Balkan's most formative years. From the down fall of the Ottoman Empire, through the turbulent nationalist years of the nineteenth century, up to World War I, the idea of the Balkans was fiercely, often violently, contested. In the wake of WWI, the beginnings of a tradition, largely enforced by academics, emerged stigmatizing the Balkans. Since then, the region has suffered from the neglect, abuse, and scant regard of both western Europe and the world. The result has been in many direct ways to compound the Balkan's poverty, internal violence, and lack of national self-image. A startling history of ideas, Imagining the Balkans provides a much needed exploration into a region too long neglected.

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Imagining the Balkans

The Millennium Dome, Braveheart and Rolls Royce cars. How do cultural icons reproduce and transform a sense of national identity? How does national identity vary across time and space, how is it contested, and what has been the impact of globalization upon national identity and culture?This book examines how national identity is represented, performed, spatialized and materialized through popular culture and in everyday life. National identity is revealed to be inherent in the things we often take for granted - from landscapes and eating habits, to tourism, cinema and music. Our specific experience of car ownership and motoring can enhance a sense of belonging, whilst Hollywood blockbusters and national exhibitions provide contexts for the ongoing, and often contested, process of national identity formation. These and a wealth of other cultural forms and practices are explored, with examples drawn from Scotland, the UK as a whole, India and Mauritius. This book addresses the considerable neglect of popular cultures in recent studies of nationalism and contributes to debates on the relationship between ‘high' and ‘low' culture.

National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life

PART I - ETHNO-HISTORY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY PART II - MYTHS AND MEMORIES OF MODERN NATIONS

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Myths and memories of the nation

This article explores the intimate historical and modern connection between manhood and nationhood: through the construction of patriotic manhood and exalted motherhood as icons of nationalist ideology; through the designation of gendered 'places' for men and women in national politics; through the domination of masculine interests and ideology in nationalist movements; through the interplay between masculine microcultures and nationalist ideology; through sexualized militarism including the construction of simultaneously over-sexed and under-sexed 'enemy' men (rapists and wimps) and promiscuous 'enemy' women (sluts and whores). Three 'puzzles' are partially solved by exposing the connection between masculinity and nationalism: why are many men so desperate to defend masculine, monoracial, and heterosexual institutional preserves, such as military organizations and academies; why do men go to war; and the 'gender gap', that is, why do men and women appear to have very different goals and agendas for the '...

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Masculinity and nationalism: gender and sexuality in the making of nations

The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism

socialist democracy that could then arise . This is indeed the agenda, but is there really nobody thinking about it in Britain? There is, despite his protestation, a certain blindness in Perry Anderson's writings to the importance of political economy and to the English and Scottish contribution to it a blind eye that fails to see, for example, a figure like Maurice Dobb to whom members of the CSE owe so much . As a Conference of Socialist Economists we are concerned primarily with the first items on Perry Anderson's list . He remarks in passing that 'work has only just begun on these issues' . The sole references in the text are to Ernest Mandel's writings. None of us, I suspect, would wish to claim more than that we were good journeymen in a great tradition . It may be that giants will grow from among our numbers . But I suspect that the days of the universal, well-nigh omniscient scholar-prince or intellectual and revolutionary leader are gone. Their place will be taken by teams and groups, not of narrow specialists but of men and women who have studied across the disciplines and married their common studies with working class actions at all levels . The peculiar dichotomy in Perry Anderson's writings between his deep respect for the few great thinkers and for the 'masses' when 'they themselves speak' comes from the peculiar Olympian view that he takes of the earth's surface . From great heights an all-embracing, synoptic view can be obtained and Perry Anderson's writing often brilliantly illuminates the main features of the landscape but men and women, except in masses, appear as pygmies . We may concede that 'there were giants on the earth in those days' ; and still pray that he should 'make no more giants but elevate the race .'

The Break-Up of Britain

Over the last few decades, Tom Nairn has been one of the most respected and provocative writers on questions of nationalism, British politics and the constitution. In his seminal essay "The Modern Janus," Nairn argued for the democratic necessity of nationalism in the modern world. Here, in this strikingly original and timely new work, he addresses the subsequent upheavals caused by nationalism. In Faces of Nationalism Tom Nairn argues that nation-building movements from 1750 to 1990 have saved the world from imperial barbarism. Contrary to many gloomy prognoses following the Soviet and Yugoslav collapses, Nairn argues that the chaos feared by so many observers is neither endless nor one-sidedly destructive. While insisting that nationalism is as inescapable as ever, Nairn shows how its forms and content are shifting. The ethnic definition of the national is giving way to the civic, the "natural" to the designed. Nairn believes that today's more civic and secular nationalism is a key feature of modernity and not an archaic reaction against it. Tom Nairn's wide-ranging discussion takes in Ireland and Palestine, Bosnia and Czechoslovakia, Cambodia and Rwanda, South Africa and Scotland. Faces of Nationalism is a work that demands to be read by anyone wanting to understand a central feature of politics in the modern world.

Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited

The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism

In this acclaimed meditation on the British state, its identity and culture, Tom Nairn sees the monarchy both as its apex and its essence, the symbol of a national backwardness. This powerful, analytical, and bitterly funny book lays bare Britain's peculiar, pseudo-modern, national identity, one that remains fixated on the Crown and its constitutional framework, the "parliamentary sovereignty" of Westminster.

Tom Nairn

Papers

The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism

The Break-Up of Britain

Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited

The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism

The enchanted glass : Britain and its monarchy