Land and Nation in England
Patriotism, National Identity, and the Politics of Land, 1880-1914
Published on 21. July 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-84383-652-0 (ISBN)
Description
New examination of how land politics were closely entwined with the idea of Englishness.
The land question loomed large in late Victorian and Edwardian politics, playing a major part in Conservative, Liberal and Labour policymaking: in the context of concern about the faltering agricultural economy and the effects oflarge-scale rural-urban migration, land reforms were hotly debated in and out of parliament as never before. This book offers the first full-length study of the relationship between Englishness and the politics of land. It explores the ideas and cultural attitudes that informed political positions on the land question, from paternalist "pure squire Conservatism" to patriotic radical visions of pre-enclosure England: the author underlines how the land question excited political passion and controversy because it involved contested issues of national identity, national character and race.
By examining how land politics functioned as a site for patriotic debate, the book offers fresh insights into the ideological significance of contemporary nationalistic discourse, which in the British context has more usually been associated with war and empire than apparently "domestic" issues. In doing so, it argues for the importance of rural - but not necessarily reactionary - constructions of Englishness in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century England.
Dr PAUL READMAN is Lecturer in Modern History at King's College London.
The land question loomed large in late Victorian and Edwardian politics, playing a major part in Conservative, Liberal and Labour policymaking: in the context of concern about the faltering agricultural economy and the effects oflarge-scale rural-urban migration, land reforms were hotly debated in and out of parliament as never before. This book offers the first full-length study of the relationship between Englishness and the politics of land. It explores the ideas and cultural attitudes that informed political positions on the land question, from paternalist "pure squire Conservatism" to patriotic radical visions of pre-enclosure England: the author underlines how the land question excited political passion and controversy because it involved contested issues of national identity, national character and race.
By examining how land politics functioned as a site for patriotic debate, the book offers fresh insights into the ideological significance of contemporary nationalistic discourse, which in the British context has more usually been associated with war and empire than apparently "domestic" issues. In doing so, it argues for the importance of rural - but not necessarily reactionary - constructions of Englishness in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century England.
Dr PAUL READMAN is Lecturer in Modern History at King's College London.
Reviews / Votes
A concise and lucid account. [It] offers a compelling case for the importance of ideas about land to the history of modern English politics. * AGRICULTURAL HISTORY * A thorough and illuminating study of the politics of the land during the transition to mass democracy. * JOURNAL OF MODERN HISTORY * [The author] tames a monumental archive in his work, amassing a body of speeches and writing surrounding the land reform debates that has been almost entirely ignored by those who examine rural visions of English identity in novels, poems or popular mass media. * VICTORIAN STUDIES * [A] sophisticated, subtle and probing study [...]. * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW * [An] impressive volume [which] makes important contributions to a range of crucial debates in modern British history. It will interest a range of scholars and students of politics, rural society, agriculture, national identity and land reform and provide them with a thoroughly good read. * AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW * This book goes some considerable distance in filling [a] gap in the historiography. [...] Readman has written an important book that deserves to be widely read and debated by political and cultural historians, agricultural historians, imperial historians and historians of national identity. It is a gifted historian indeed who can weave together a narrative that has such wide historiographical resonance. * PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY * [An] excellent addition to the Royal History Society's Studies in History New Series. [...] An impressive addition to the output of a prolific historian, and makes a very important contribution to the historiography of land, and of English politics in this period. * RURAL HISTORY * An important and innovative contribution to the developing historiography on land reform. [...] This book [...] is an indispensable contribution to understanding land reform in the period 1880-1914 and has pushed the debate about these issues in new and exciting directions. It is also exceptionally well written. * TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY JOURNAL *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Woodbridge
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
398 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84383-652-0 (9781843836520)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Paul Readman
Land and Nation in England
Patriotism, National Identity, and the Politics of Land, 1880-1914
Book
08/2008
Royal Historical Society
€82.00
Article exhausted; check different version
Person
Paul Readman is Professor of Modern British History at King's College London.