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Thomas Babington Macaulay's History of England was a phenomenal Victorian best-seller which shaped much more than the literary culture of the times: it defined a nation's sense of self, charting the rise of the British Isles to its triumph as a homogenous nation, a safeguard of the freedom of belief and expression, and a central world power. In this book Catherine Hall explores the emotional, intellectual, and political roots of Thomas Macaulay's vision of England, tracing the influence of his father's career as a colonial governor and drawing illuminating comparisons between the two men.
Prize-winning historian Robert Gildea dissects the legacy of empire for the former colonial powers and their subjects.
This pioneering 2006 volume addresses the question of how Britain's empire was lived through everyday practices - in church and chapel, by readers at home, as embodied in sexualities or forms of citizenship, as narrated in histories - from the eighteenth century to the present. Leading historians explore the imperial experience and legacy for those located, physically or imaginatively, 'at home,' from the impact of empire on constructions of womanhood, masculinity and class to its influence in shaping literature, sexuality, visual culture, consumption and history-writing. They assess how people thought imperially, not in the sense of political affiliations for or against empire, but simply assuming it was there, part of the given world that had made them who they were. They also show how empire became a contentious focus of attention at certain moments and in particular ways. This will be essential reading for scholars and students of modern Britain and its empire.
By the time the summer holidays begin, Spencer Little is keen to put the events of the past term at Cambridge behind him and a remote village in the Lake District seems to offer the perfect escape. But it's not so easy to remain anonymous in a small community and, after striking up a friendship with ten year old Alice, Spencer also finds himself being drawn into other people's lives. As the summer heatwave intensifies and a web of complicity tightens around him, Spencer realizes that he will eventually be forced to choose between loyalty and truth, between logic and passion.
This reader collects together articles by key historians, literary critics and anthropologists on the cultures of colonialism in the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is divided into three sections: theoretical, emphasizing approaches; the colonisers "at home"; and "away".
When war photographer Jo returns from her latest assignment in Afghanistan and moves into the Brighton flat she's just inherited, she hopes to restore equilibrium to her chaotic life. But images and events of her recent past and the reading of her great-grandmother Elizabeth's diary haunt her night and day, forcing Jo to come to terms with demons she thought she could leave behind. Written as a long confession to Jo's former lover Susie, alternating with Elizabeth's account of nursing Indian soldiers at the Brighton Pavilion in 1915, The Repercussions--Catherine Hall's most ambitious novel to date--is a sweeping narrative dealing with the psychological and emotional reality of war, as well as race, guilt, love, and loss.
What are the relations between feminism and history, feminist politics and historical practice? What are the connections between gender and class? What part have racial identities and ethnic difference played in the construction of Englishness? Through a series of provocative and richly detailed essays, Catherine Hall explores these questions. She argues that feminism has opened up vital new questions for history and transformed familiar historical narratives. Class can no longer be understood outside of gender, or gender outside of class. But English identities have also been rooted in imperial power. White, Male and Middle Class explores the ways in which middle-class masculinities were rooted in conceptions of power over dependants - whether black or female.
Family Fortunes has become a seminal text in class and gender history. Published to wide critical acclaim in 1987, its influence in the field continues to be extensive. It has cast new light on the perception of middle-class society and gender relations between 1780 and 1850. This revised edition contains a substantial new introduction, placing the original survey in its historiographical context. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall evaluate the readings their text has received and broaden their study by taking into account recent developments and shifts in the field. They apply current perceptions of history to their original project, and see new motives and meanings emerge that reinforce their argument.
Defining the Victorian Nation offers a fresh perspective on one of the most significant pieces of legislation in nineteenth-century Britain. Hall, McClelland and Rendall demonstrate that the Second Reform Act was marked by controversy about the extension of the vote, new concepts of masculinity and the masculine voter, the beginnings of the women's suffrage movement, and a parallel debate about the meanings and forms of national belonging. Fascinating illustrations illuminate the argument, and a detailed chronology, biographical notes and a selected bibliography offer further support to the student reader.
My memories of Grace never added up to how she really was. She was always impossible to pin down, dancing just out of my reach, exactly as she did when she was alive. Nora was a girl of twelve when the war broke out and she was forced to join the train-loads of evacuees leaving London's East End for rural Kent. Her surrogate family, the Rivers, are unlike anyone she has met before and she soon comes to love her new life with them, and in particular with twelve-year-old Grace. Over the next few years, as the dogfights rage ever more fiercely over head and it becomes clear that the Rivers marriage contains deep and irreparable cracks, Nora and Grace grow as close as sisters - though, to Nora's confusion, even this is not quite as close as she would like ...What happened next is a secret that will gnaw away at Nora for the rest of her life - a secret that she can only begin to tell when she is certain that she is approaching the end.