Reinventing Britain

Reinventing Britain PDF Author: Andrew McDonald
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520916182
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Contrary to popular myth, Britain does have a constitution, one that is uncodified and commanded little political interest for most of the twentieth century. In the late 1990s, Tony Blair's New Labour Government launched a program of reform that was striking in its ambition. Reinventing Britain tells the story of Britain's constitutional reform and weighs its long-term significance, with essays both by officials who worked on the reforms and by other leading commentators and academics from Britain and North America. Contributors: Mark Bevir, Jack Citrin, Joseph Fletcher, Robert Hazell, Ailsa Henderson, Kate Malleson, Craig Parsons, Kenneth MacKenzie, Peter Riddell

Reinventing Britain

Reinventing Britain PDF Author: Andrew McDonald
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520916182
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contrary to popular myth, Britain does have a constitution, one that is uncodified and commanded little political interest for most of the twentieth century. In the late 1990s, Tony Blair's New Labour Government launched a program of reform that was striking in its ambition. Reinventing Britain tells the story of Britain's constitutional reform and weighs its long-term significance, with essays both by officials who worked on the reforms and by other leading commentators and academics from Britain and North America. Contributors: Mark Bevir, Jack Citrin, Joseph Fletcher, Robert Hazell, Ailsa Henderson, Kate Malleson, Craig Parsons, Kenneth MacKenzie, Peter Riddell

Reinventing Political Culture

Reinventing Political Culture PDF Author: Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745646379
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
The way people think and act politically is not set in stone. People can and do change the fundamental cultural contours of their political situation. Their political culture does not only restrict imagination and action - it is also a resource for political creativity and invention. In Reinventing Political Culture, this resource is uncovered and explored. Analyzed as a tension between the power of culture and the culture of power, the concept of political culture is reinvented and applied to understanding the practice of people transforming their own political culture in very different circumstances. Three instances of such reinvention are closely examined: one historic, during the twilight of the Soviet empire; one actively in process and actively opposed, ‘the Obama revolution'; and one an apparent distant dream, the power of culture and the culture of power that would avoid ‘the clash of civilizations' in the Middle East. In accessible and engaging prose, Goldfarb clearly and forcefully presents students and scholars of sociology, comparative politics, and cultural studies with an original position on political culture, showing how the political cultures of our times pose not only grave dangers, but also opportunities for creative alternatives.

Beyond Habermas

Beyond Habermas PDF Author: Christian Emden
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857457217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
During the 1960s the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas introduced the notion of a "bourgeois public sphere" in order to describe the symbolic arena of political life and conversation that originated with the cultural institutions of the early eighteenth-century; since then the "public sphere" itself has become perhaps one of the most debated concepts at the very heart of modernity. For Habermas, the tension between the administrative power of the state, with its understanding of sovereignty, and the emerging institutions of the bourgeoisie--coffee houses, periodicals, encyclopedias, literary culture, etc.--was seen as being mediated by the public sphere, making it a symbolic site of public reasoning. This volume examines whether the "public sphere" remains a central explanatory model in the social sciences, political theory, and the humanities.

Reinventing Africa

Reinventing Africa PDF Author: Annie E. Coombes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300068900
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Between 1890 and 1918, British colonial expansion in Africa led to the removal of many African artifacts that were subsequently brought to Britain and displayed. Annie Coombes argues that this activity had profound repercussions for the construction of a national identity within Britain itself--the effects of which are still with us today. Through a series of detailed case studies, Coombes analyzes the popular and scientific knowledge of Africa which shaped a diverse public's perception of that continent: the looting and display of the Benin "bronzes" from Nigeria; ethnographic museums; the mass spectacle of large-scale international and missionary exhibitions and colonial exhibitions such as the "Stanley and African" of 1890; together with the critical reaction to such events in British national newspapers, the radical and humanitarian press and the West African press. Coombes argues that although endlessly reiterated racial stereotypes were disseminated through popular images of all things "African," this was no simple reproduction of imperial ideology. There were a number of different and sometimes conflicting representations of Africa and of what it was to be African--representations that varied according to political, institutional, and disciplinary pressures. The professionalization of anthropology over this period played a crucial role in the popularization of contradictory ideas about African culture to a mass public. Pioneering in its research, this book offers valuable insights for art and design historians, historians of imperialism and anthropology, anthropologists, and museologists.

The Popular & the Canonical

The Popular & the Canonical PDF Author: David Johnson
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415351690
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
This volume ranges from the Second World War to the postmodern, considering issues of the 'popular' and the competing criteria by which literature has been judged in the later twentieth century. As well as tracing the transition from modernism to postmodernism, the authors guide students through debates around the pleasures of the popular and the question of inter-relations between 'mass' and 'high' cultures. Drawing further upon issues of value and function raised in Aestheticism and Modernism: Debating Twentieth-Century Literature 1900-1960, they examine contemporary literary prizes and the activity of judgement involved in English Studies. This text can be used alongside the other books in the series for a complete course on twentieth-century literature, or on its own as essential reading for students of mid to late twentieth-century writing. Texts examined in detail include: du Maurier's Rebecca, poetry by Ginsburg and O'Hara, Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Puig's Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Heaney's New Selected Poems 1966-1987, Gurnah's Paradise, Barker's The Ghost Road.

Multicultural Britain

Multicultural Britain PDF Author: Kieran Connell
Publisher: Hurst Publishers
ISBN: 1805261894
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Between the end of the Second World War and the early twenty-first century, Britain became multicultural. This vivid book tells that remarkable story. Kieran Connell, an historian of Irish and German heritage who grew up in Balsall Heath, inner-city Birmingham, takes readers into multicultural communities across Britain at key moments in their development. Journeying far beyond London, Multicultural Britain explores the messy contradictions of the country’s transition into today’s diverse society. It reveals the ordinary people who have forged Britain’s multiculturalism; skewers public leaders, from Enoch Powell to Harold Wilson to Margaret Thatcher, who have too often weaponised race for their own political ends; and shines a light on the shifting nature of British racism, revealing its enduring day-to-day impact on ethnic-minority groups. Between postcolonial reckonings and immigration anxieties, how people live together in Brexit Britain remains an urgent question for our time. Connell’s fresh, thought-provoking book unveils British multiculturalism not as a problematic idea, but as a rich and complex lived reality.

Homi K. Bhabha

Homi K. Bhabha PDF Author: David Huddart
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134335121
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Homi K. Bhabha is one of the most highly renowned figures in contemporary post-colonial studies. This volume explores his writings and their influence on postcolonial theory, introducing in clear and accessible language the key concepts of his work, such as 'ambivalence', 'mimicry', 'hybridity' and 'translation'. David Huddart draws on a range of contexts, including art history, contemporary cinema and canonical texts in order to illustrate the practical application of Bhabha's theories. This introductory guidebook is ideal for all students working in the fields of literary, cultural and postcolonial theory.

Reinventing Christianity

Reinventing Christianity PDF Author: Linda Woodhead
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351775928
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
This title was first published in 2001. 'An age of faith or an age of doubt?'- the question has dominated study of Christianity in the Victorian era. Reinventing Christianity offers a fresh analysis of the vitality and variety of Christianity in Britain and America in the Victorian era. Part One presents an overview of some of the main varieties of Christianity in the west ranging from the conservative - Protestant evangelicalism and 'fortress' Catholicism - to the radical - Theosophy, Swedenborgianism and Transcendentalism; Part Two reviews negotiations between Christianity and the wider culture. The conclusion reflects on general trends in the period, showing how many of these prefigured later developments in religion. This book highlights the creativity and diversity of 19th century Christianity, showing how developments normally associated with the late 20th century - such as the reassertion of tradition and the rise of feminist theology and alternative spirituality - were already in train a century before.

Homi K. Bhabha

Homi K. Bhabha PDF Author:
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113433513X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description


Over to You, Mr Brown

Over to You, Mr Brown PDF Author: Anthony Giddens
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745642225
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Labour stands at a decisive point in its history. A change of leadership can help reinvigorate the party, but winning a fourth term of government will be impossible unless Labour's ideological position and policy outlook are thoroughly refurbished. What form should these innovations take?