Journal ArticleDOI
Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837.
Eliga H. Gould,Linda Colley +1 more
TLDR
In this paper, Colley explains how a new British nation was invented in the wake of the 1707 Act of Union, and how this new national identity was nurtured through war, religion, trade and imperial expansion.Abstract:
How was Great Britain made? And what does it mean to be British? In this prize-winning book, Linda Colley explains how a new British nation was invented in the wake of the 1707 Act of Union, and how this new national identity was nurtured through war, religion, trade and imperial expansion. Here too are numerous individual Britons - heroes and politicians like Nelson and Pitt; bourgeois patriots like Thomas Coram and John Wilkes; artists, writers and musicians who helped to forge our image of Britishness; as well as many ordinary men and women whose stories have never previously been told. Powerful and timely, this lavishly illustrated book is a major contribution to our understanding of Britain's past and to the growing debate about the shape and survival of Britain and its institutions in the future. \"The most dazzling and comprehensive study of a national identity yet to appear in any language.\" Tom Nairn, Scotsman \"A very fine book ...challenging, fascinating, enormously well-informed.\" John Barrell, London Review of Books \"Wise and bracing history ...which provides an historical context for debate about British citizenship barely begun.\" Michael Ratcliffe, Observer \"Controversial, entertaining and alarmingly topical ...a delight to read.\"Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph \"Uniting sharp analysis, pungent prose and choice examples, Colley probes beneath the skin and lays bare the anatomy of nationhood.\" Roy Porter, New Statesman & Societyread more
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Journal ArticleDOI
James Boswell and Corsica 1728–1768: the development of British opinion during the Corsican revolt
TL;DR: The Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791, only a few years before his own death as discussed by the authors, was a masterly biography of his friend and mentor The Life of Johnson.
Journal ArticleDOI
Utopia, Religion and Memory
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the way in which the forward glance of utopianism necessarily draws heavily on the backward glance, which is discussed here in terms of memory, and contrast the moderate utopian use of religion in Rawls and Habermas with the deployment of the religious sublime found in Ernst Bloch, but argue that each approach has its proper place in a modern religious-sensitive politics.
Book ChapterDOI
’In Countries so Unciviliz’d as Those?’: The Language of Incivility and the British Experience of the World
Marc Alexander,Andrew Struan +1 more
TL;DR: The authors analyse the ways in which the English-speaking peoples have sought to conceptualise those deemed uncivil, through an investigation into the word choices which scholars now know were available to them at each stage in the evolution of the English language.
Telling New Tales: Modernizations of Chaucer in the Eighteenth Century
TL;DR: In the process of rewriting the Canterbury Tales, the modernizers unwittingly accomplished something else, of no less importance as discussed by the authors, which was to reveal the religious and political landscape of the late-Stuart and Georgian dynasties.