Many of the traditions which we think of as very ancient in their origins were not in fact sanctioned by long usage over the centuries, but were invented comparatively recently. This book explores ...examples of this process of invention – the creation of Welsh and Scottish 'national culture'; the elaboration of British royal rituals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the origins of imperial rituals in British India and Africa; and the attempts by radical movements to develop counter-traditions of their own. It addresses the complex interaction of past and present, bringing together historians and anthropologists in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism which poses new questions for the understanding of our history.
Nations and Nationalism since 1780 is Eric Hobsbawm's widely acclaimed and highly readable enquiry into the question of nationalism. Events in the late twentieth century in Eastern Europe and the ...Soviet republics have since reinforced the central importance of nationalism in the history of the political evolution and upheaval. This second edition has been updated in light of those events, with a final chapter addressing the impact of the dramatic changes that have taken place. Also included are additional maps to illustrate nationalities, languages and political divisions across Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
America Kiernan, Victor
2015., 2015, 2015-10-15, Volume:
56217
eBook
While there have been many analyses of American imperialism, few have equalled the breadth or insight of this seminal text, one of the first to provide a historical perspective on the origins of the ...American empire. Victor Kiernan, one of the world's most respected historians, employs a nuanced knowledge of history, literature, and politics in tracing the evolution of American power. Far reaching and ambitious in scope, the book combines accounts of the changing relationship between Native Americans and the white population with readings of the works of key cultural figures, such as Melville and Whitman, as well as an analysis of the way in which money and politics became so closely intertwined in American democracy. Also included is a preface by Eric Hobsbawm providing insight into his own views on American imperialism as well as a valuable introduction to Victor Kiernan's work. Together, they shed useful light on such issues as the uses and misuses of American military might, its lack of respect for international agreements, and the right to pre- emptive defence – issues which remain just as urgent today.
Antonio Gramsci Santucci, Antonio A; Porta, Lelio La; Hobsbawm, Eric ...
04/2010
eBook
"What the future fortunes of Gramsci's writings will be, we
cannot know. However, his permanence is already sufficiently sure,
and justifies the historical study of his international reception.
The ...present collection of studies is an indispensable foundation
for this." -Eric Hobsbawm, from the preface Antonio Gramsci is a
giant of Marxian thought and one of the world's greatest cultural
critics. Antonio A. Santucci is perhaps the world's preeminent
Gramsci scholar. Monthly Review Press is proud to publish, for the
first time in English, Santucci's masterful intellectual biography
of the great Sardinian scholar and revolutionary. Gramscian terms
such as "civil society" and "hegemony" are much used in everyday
political discourse. Santucci warns us, however, that these words
have been appropriated by both radicals and conservatives for
contemporary and often self-serving ends that often have nothing to
do with Gramsci's purposes in developing them. Rather what we must
do, and what Santucci illustrates time and again in his dissection
of Gramsci's writings, is absorb Gramsci's methods. These can be
summed up as the suspicion of "grand explanatory schemes," the
unity of theory and practice, and a focus on the details of
everyday life. With respect to the last of these, Joseph Buttigieg
says in his Nota : "Gramsci did not set out to explain
historical reality armed with some full-fledged concept, such as
hegemony; rather, he examined the minutiae of concrete social,
economic, cultural, and political relations as they are lived in by
individuals in their specific historical circumstances and,
gradually, he acquired an increasingly complex understanding of how
hegemony operates in many diverse ways and under many aspects
within the capillaries of society." The rigor of Santucci's
examination of Gramsci's life and work matches that of the seminal
thought of the master himself. Readers will be enlightened and
inspired by every page.
Lords of Human kind Kiernan, Victor; Trumpbour, John; Hobsbawm, Eric
2015., 2015, 2015-02-12, Volume:
10
eBook
When European explorers went out into the world to open up trade routes and establish colonies, they brought back much more than silks and spices, cotton and tea. Inevitably, they came into contact ...with the peoples of other parts of the world and formed views of them occasionally admiring, more often hostile or contemptuous. Using a stunning array of sources - missionaries' memoirs, the letters of diplomats' wives, explorers' diaries and the work of writers as diverse as Voltaire, Thackeray, Oliver Goldsmith and, of course, Kipling - Victor Kiernan teases out the full range of European attitudes to other peoples. Erudite, ironic and global in its scope, The Lords of Human Kind has been a major influence on a generation of historians and cultural critics and is a landmark in the history of Eurocentrism.
Powers, possessions, and freedom Macpherson, C. B
Powers, possessions, and freedom,
1979, 19790101, 2019, 1979, 1979-01-01
eBook
Crawford Brough Macpherson has been teaching at the University of Toronto for some forty years, building an international reputation through his identification and critique of possessive ...individualism as a core concept in Western liberal democratic theory. The essays brought together here from eminent scholars all over the English-speaking world are independent statements on the issues that preoccupy Macpherson - powers, possessions, and freedom, the central problems in political theory. They are arranged in a historical sequence, touching on the thought of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, and Macpherson himself, and facing with vigour and originality the dilemmas of liberal-democratic and Marxian theory of social and political life. It concludes with an explication by the editor of the inner parable of Durrenmatt's play, The Visit, as a profound critique of capitalism, and with a bibliography of Macpherson's published work.
The Construction of Nationhood, first published in 1997, is a thorough re-analysis of both nationalism and nations. In particular it challenges the current 'modernist' orthodoxies of such writers as ...Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner, and it offers a systematic critique of Hobsbawm's best-selling Nations and Nationalism since 1780. In opposition to a historiography which limits nations and nationalism to the eighteenth century and after, as an aspect of 'modernisation', Professor Hastings argues for a medieval origin to both, dependent upon biblical religion and the development of vernacular literatures. While theorists of nationhood have paid mostly scant attention to England, the development of the nation-state is seen here as central to the subject, but the analysis is carried forward to embrace many other examples, including Ireland, the South Slavs and modern Africa, before concluding with an overview of the impact of religion, contrasting Islam with Christianity, while evaluating the ability of each to support supra-national political communities.
A Life in History Hobsbawm, E. J.
Past & present,
11/2002
177
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Although life has lengthened substantially in the past half-century, any person of 85 is still a statistical rarity. The age-group represents less than one percent of the world population.
