Ideas of Englishness, and of the English nation, have become a matter of renewed interest in recent years as a result of threats to the integrity of the United Kingdom and the perceived rise of that unusual thing, English nationalism. Interrogating the idea of an English nation, and of how that might compare with other concepts of nationhood, this book enquires into the origins of English national identity, partly by questioning the assumption of its long-standing existence. It investigates the role of the British empire - the largest empire in world history - in the creation of English and British identities, and the results of its disappearance. Considering the ’myths of the English’ - the ideas and images that the English and others have constructed about their history and their sense of themselves as a people - the distinctiveness of English social thought (in comparison with that of other nations), the relationship between English and British identity and the relationship of Englishness to Europe, this wide-ranging, comparative and historical approach to understanding the particular nature of Englishness and English national identity, will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural studies and history with interests in English and British national identity and debates about England’s future place in the United Kingdom.

What does citizenship mean? What is the process of "naturalization" one goes through in becoming a citizen, and what is its connection to assimilation? How do the issues of identity raised by this process manifest themselves in culture? These questions, and the way they arise in contemporary France, are the focus of this diverse collection. The essays in this volume range in subject from fiction and essay to architecture and film. Among the topics discussed are the 1937 Exposition Universelle; films dealing with Vichy France; François Truffaut's Histoire d'Adèle H.; the war of Algerian independence; and nation building under François Mitterrand. -- Amazon.com.

Complemented by travel advice, maps, accommodation listings, and site descriptions, a collection of essays and articles on the region of southwestern France, by noted authors, travel writers, and journalists, is organized thematically under such headings as Current Events, Food and Drink, and Museums and Monuments. Original. 15,000 first printing.

The essays collected in this volume represent author Cheng-chung Lai's views on Fernand Braudel's concepts, methodology, and principal books. Through an examination of Braudel's contributions to historiography, Lai focuses on the inner logic and insights presented in Braudel's writings.

An exploration of shifting landscapes--both real and represented--in nineteenth-century France and the role of images in both picturing and producing those shifts What is the relationship between land and landscape? This engaging study examines the role landscape depictions played in the formation of modern France and reveals how art and visual culture contributed to the physical and symbolic shaping of the nation. Spanning more than a century, from the post-revolutionary period through to the early twentieth century, Land into Landscape explores political and environmental shifts alongside changes in landscape representation across a variety of media, including paintings, photographs, prints, porcelain, and maps. Through this broad and diverse set of images--by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Gustave Courbet, Théodore Rousseau, and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, as well as lesser-known figures--Kelly Presutti contends that representational problems were also political problems, which often required drastic solutions on the part of the state. In the nineteenth century, France's forests were replanted, its wetlands were drained, its coasts were secured, and its mountains restored. Landscapes and their inhabitants, however, could resist being co-opted as emblems of a greater ideal. The book therefore addresses the tension between a place and its representation--a matter of heightened urgency in a moment when we are once again struggling to both see and manage our environment.