Nostalgia not only played a decisive role in the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum – where it was most pointedly expressed in the infamous slogan ‘Take Back Control’ – but also shapes current ...British politics, culture, and society at large. The present monograph provides the first comprehensive critical analysis of this recent ubiquity of nostalgia from a British Cultural Studies perspective. Central to its newly developed narratological approach is the concept of the contemporary ‘master narrative of nostalgia’, the prevailing means of national self-assertion in Brexit Britain through which the dominant notions of British history and national identity are currently constructed. After discussing the master narrative’s most important nostalgic tropes found in recent political rhetoric, the main part of the study then analyses the ways in which contemporary fiction from different media (literature, film, TV) engages and interrelates with the master narrative of nostalgia. The six case studies focus on historical fiction about the Second World War and the end of the British Raj, as well as on novels from the so-called ‘BrexLit’ genre responding to the outcome of the 2016 EU referendum.
The article investigates how US-Americans of German origin and ancestry used humanitarian aid to Germany after the Second World War to deliberate their individual notions of heritage amidst the ...recent violent past of the land of origin. For this purpose, it looks at the rhetoric used by the leaders of German-American heritage organizations and both ethnic and non-ethnic humanitarian agencies. The article finds that these groups employed debates on German postwar suffering and the idea of the Germans being Hitler's ‘first victims’ to circumvent any accusation of potential German public complicity. They did so not because their German origin subjected immigrants to much public hostility in the United States the way it had during the First World War, but rather because the Nazi atrocities threatened to taint their understandings of Germanness and heritage. By portraying fascism as an outside force that was not inherently German but that had preyed on Germanness from the outside, immigrants could resort to humanitarian aid as a means of rehabilitation that did not support the perpetrators but the victims of the Second World War.
Between 1939 and 1945, canned fish occupied the first place in the Portuguese exports. This fact, not always recognized, allows us to revisit the issue of Portuguese neutrality during the war and ...highlights the relevance of foreign trade in the relations maintained with the belligerent countries. In this article we argue that the trade in canned fish was an important agent of neutrality, allowing Portugal to achieve a balance in international relations. In the decisive years of the conflict, canned exports were based on a bipolarization between the Allied and Axis countries. In order to maintain the regularity of industrial production, the state was obliged to ensure the supply and distribution of raw materials and to enter into exclusive sales contracts. Based on unpublished documentation from the Instituto Português de Conservas de Peixe, we seek to demonstrate how the war allowed for a deepening of state-led economic coordination.
This Research Note gives a brief introduction to the Library of the Society of Friends, based at Friends House in London, and focuses on a recent Wellcome Trust-funded project to catalogue and ...preserve the archival collections of two Quaker relief bodies in the Second World War: Friends Relief Service and Friends Ambulance Unit.1 The aim is to give a high-level overview of the collections, referencing some of the existing historiography and hopefully shining a light on some areas of particular interest for new academic research.
This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0.
Activities of youth clubs and associations in Perak were reported in newspapers prior to the Second World War. Based on library research, the primary sources examined, were newspapers such as Taiping ...Weekly, The Times of Malaya and Planters & Miners Gazette. Other documents and previous studies related to this study contributed to the discussions presented in this paper. This paper focused on details relating to the foundation of clubs and associations in Perak since the British set foot in Malaya. The establishment of these youth clubs and associations opened new avenues for youths from different ethnic backgrounds to participate in activities within their communities which garnered encouragement from the British for youth activities in Perak. Such support from the British reflected their eagerness in developing clubs and associations in Perak. This then served as a catalyst for youths to be involved in organising and establishing clubs and societies. While these clubs and associations developed and expanded, so did the leadership skills among their youths in Perak. There has not been much discussions about youth development and issues related to youth clubs and associations prior to the Second World War. As such, this study attempts to demonstrate the importance and role of youth clubs and associations in Perak that served as a vehicle in shaping peoples’ perception prior to the Second World War.
