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a valuable source of social commentary at a time of great change wide ranging - from women's issues to colonisation Gordon is well known - Emeritus Professor at the University of London Institute of Education
The traditional view of Samuel Johnson has been that of a reactionary conservative. Although many have worked to undermine this stereotype, perhaps enough remains to claim Johnson as a representative of modernity. This book aims to demonstrate that Johnson is a figure of modernity, one with an appeal many modernist writers found irresistible.
This book reviews changes in attitudes to immigrants in Britain and the language that was used to put these feelings into words between 1841 and 1921. Using a historical and linguistic method for an analysis of so far for this purpose relatively unused primary sources, it offers novel findings. It has found that changes in the meaning and use of the word alien in Britain coincided during the period between 1841 and 1921 with the expression of changing attitudes to immigrants in this country and the modification of the British variant of the English language. When people in Britain in these years used the term ‘an alien’, they meant most likely a foreigner, stranger, refugee or immigrant. In 1841 an alien denoted a foreigner or a stranger, notably a person residing or working in a country who did not have the nationality or citizenship of that country. However, by 1921 an alien mainly signified an immigrant in Britain – a term which, as this book shows, had in the course of the years since 1841 acquired very negative connotations.