
Out of Place
Englishness, Empire, and the Locations of Identity
Ian Baucom(Author)
Princeton University Press
Published on 21. February 1999
Book
Hardback
280 pages
978-0-691-01666-5 (ISBN)
Description
In a 1981 debate on the British Nationality Act, Enoch Powell insisted that although a black man may be a British citizen, he can never be an Englishman. This book explains why such a claim was possible to advance and impossible to defend. In the author's view, the Empire was less a place where England exerted control than where it lost command of its own identity. Analyzing imperial crisis zones, including the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the Morant Bay uprising of 1865, the Amritsar massacre of 1919, and the Brixton riots of 1981, the author asks if the building of the empire completely refashioned England's narratives of national identity. He draws on a range of sources including Victorian and imperial architectural theory, country house fetishism, domestic and imperial cricket culture and and representations of urban riots on television, in novels and in parliamentary sessions. Finally, emphasizing the English preoccupation with place, he discusses some locations of Englishness that replaced the rural sites of Wordsworthian tradition, such as the Morant Bay courthouse, the 1857 uprising in India and the urban riot zones.
Reviews / Votes
Out of Place is an impressive volume, ambitious in its scope, sophisticated in its argument, and elegant in its execution. -- Ranu Samantrai MLR: Modern Language ReviewMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
510 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-01666-5 (9780691016665)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/1999
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€171.95
Available for download
Person
Ian Baucom is the Dean of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia.
Content
Acknowledgements Ch. 1 The House of Memory: John Ruskin and the Architecture of Englishness Ch. 2 "British to the Backbone": On Imperial Subject-Fashioning Ch. 3 The Path from War to Friendship: E.M. Forster's Mutiny Pilgrimage Ch. 4 Put a Little English on It: C.L.R. James and England's Field of Play Ch. 5 Among the Ruins: Topographies of Postimperial Melancholy Ch. 6 The Riot of Englishness: Migrancy, Nomadism, and the Redemption of the Nation Afterword: Something Rich and Strange Notes Index