num_pages: 416
description: In this classic text, first published in 1977, Tom Nairn memorably depicts the “slow foundering” of the United Kingdom on the rocks of constitutional anachronism, its fall from empire and the gathering force of civic nationalism. Rich in comparisons between the nationalisms of the British Isles and those of the wider world, The Break-Up of Britain concludes by reflecting on the Janus-faced nature of national identity. Postscripts from the Thatcher and New Labour years trace the political strategies whose upshot accelerated the demise of a British order they were intended to serve.As a second Scottish independence referendum beckons, a new introduction by openDemocracy’s Anthony Barnett underlines the book’s enduring relevance.
language: English
title: The Break Up of Britain: Crisis And Neo Nationalism
titlecomplete: The Break Up of Britain: Crisis And Neo Nationalism
characters: Tony Blair, David Craig, David Hume, Charles de Gaulle, Perry Anderson, Enoch Powell, Friedrich Engels, Margaret Thatcher, Rudyard Kipling, Johan Galtung, Walter Scott, Joseph Chamberlain, Eric Hobsbawm, Edward Heath, William Ferguson, Ernest Gellner, Antonio Gramsci, James Kellas, Immanuel Wallerstein, Harold Wilson
genres: Politics, British Literature, Nonfiction, Sociology, History
ratings_count: 42
places: Britain, United Kingdom
publisher: Verso