Books like Imagined communities by Benedict Anderson

In a series of essays, Said argues the impact of mainstream culture (mainly British writers of the 19th and early 20th century, like Jane Austen and Rudyard Kipling) on colonialism and imperialism, and conversely how imperialism, resistance to it, and decolonization influenced the English and French novel. In the introduction to the work, Said explains his focus on the novel: he "consider[s] it the aesthetic object whose connection to the expanding societies of Britain and France is particularly interesting to study. The prototypical modern realistic novel is Robinson Crusoe, and certainly not accidentally it is about a European who creates a fiefdom for himself on a distant, non-European island." On the connection between culture and empire, Said observes that "The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them." Hence he analyzes cultural objects in large part to understand how empire works: "For the enterprise of empire depends upon the idea of having an empire... and all kinds of preparations are made for it within a culture; then in turn imperialism acquires a kind of coherence, a set of experiences, and a presence of ruler and ruled alike within the culture." Said defines "imperialism" as "the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory." His definition of "culture" is more complex, but he strongly suggests that we ought not to forget imperialism when discussing it. Of his overall motive, Said states: "The novels and other books I consider here I analyze because first of all I find them estimable and admirable works of art and learning, in which I and many other readers take pleasure and from which we derive profit. Second, the challenge is to connect them not only with that pleasure and profit but also with the imperial process of which they were manifestly and unconcealedly a part; rather than condemning or ignoring their participation in what was an unquestioned reality in their societies, I suggest that what we learn about this hitherto ignored aspect actually and truly enhances our reading and understanding of them." The title is thought to be a reference to two older works, Culture and Anarchy (1867–68) by Matthew Arnold and Culture and Society (1958) by Raymond Williams. Said argues that, although the "age of empire" largely ended after World War II, when most colonies gained independence, imperialism continues to exert considerable cultural influence in the present. To be aware of this fact, it is necessary, according to Said, to look at how colonialists and imperialists employed "culture" to control distant land and peoples.

In this book, Franco Berardi presents an examination of new forms of alienation in our never-off, plugged-in culture - and a clarion call for a 'conspiracy of estranged people'.

Saul argues passionately that Canada is a Métis nation heavily influenced and shaped by Aboriginal ideas.

"Poetry is the language of nonexchangeability, the return of infinite hermeneutics, and the return of the sensuous body of language. I'm talking about poetry here as an excess of language, a hidden resource which enables us to shift from one paradigm to another"--P. [4] of cover.

On July 16, 1960, John F. Kennedy came to the podium of the Los Angeles Coliseum to accept the Democratic Party's nomination as candidate for President. As is customary in American political oratory, Kennedy used his acceptance speech to provide a slogan that would characterize his administration's style of thought and action. "I stand tonight facing West on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch 3000 miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up. Their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West. .[But] the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won, and we stand today on the edge of a new frontier - the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and paths, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats." By invoking the Frontier as a symbol to trademark his candidacy, Kennedy also tapped into one of the most resonant and persistent. American myths. As Richard Slotkin shows in this extraordinarily informed and wide-ranging new book, the myth of the Frontier has been perhaps the most pervasive influence behind American culture and politics in this century;. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America brings to completion a distinguished trilogy of books that includes The Fatal Environment and the award-winning Regeneration Through Violence. Beginning in 1893 at the World. Columbian Exposition in Chicago with Frederick Jackson Turner's famous address on the closing of the American frontier and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Slotkin examines the transformation from history to myth of events like Custer's last stand and explores the myriad and fundamental ways the myth influences American culture and politics. Although Turner's "Frontier Thesis" became the dominant interpretation of our national experience among academic historians, it was. The racialist theory of history (the ascendancy and superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race), embodied in Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West, that was most influential in popular culture and government policy-making over the course of this century; The explicit assumptions about race and civilization in the Frontier myth articulated by Roosevelt provided the justification for most of America's expansionist policies, from Roosevelt's own Rough riders to Kennedy's. And Johnson's counterinsurgency policies in Southeast Asia. Thus America's defeat in Vietnam, Slotkin argues, ruptured the very foundation of our public mythology, and caused a crisis of confidence unprecedented in American history. Drawing on an impressive and diverse array of materials from dime novels, pulp fiction and Hollywood westerns to the writings and careers of figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, Owen Wister, Jesse James, Zane Grey, John Ford, Sam Peckinpah. John Wayne and John F. Kennedy, Richard Slotkin reveals the connections that link our mythology with real life (he sees it as no surprise that The Wild Bunch was in the theaters while the revelation of the Mylai Massacre was on the newsstands). Richard Slotkin has been referred to as "one of the most gifted people alive when it comes to the cultural interpretation of fiction" (Patricia Limerick, The Yale Review). With Gunfighter Nation, he confirms himself as one of our. Preeminent cultural critics. Sure to spark intense debate, this monumental book offers an original, incisive and highly provocative interpretation of our national experience.

While conflicts of class, ideology and political systems have receded in the post-Cold War world, divisions based on group identity - cultural, ethnic, religious, and national - have assumed new importance. From Bosnia to Belfast and Burundi, from California to Kosovo, the difficulty of defining and reconciling group identities, and of relating them to state structures, has become one of the central problems of our time. Nations in the developed world are no less immune from these complex issues whether they involve Scottish nationalism, the rival national identities in Northern Ireland, the uneasy integration of former GDR citizens into a united Germany, the perennial problems of Afro-Americans and Hispanics in the United States, not to mention the myriad factors raised by the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Leading scholars and writers such as the late Ernest Gellner, Bhikhu Parekh, Olivier Roy, Michael Ignatieff and Professor Adam Roberts of Oxford University have collaborated with Edward Mortimer to illuminate the issues of ethnic and national identity which have emerged as central to the politics of today's world. They examine definitions of ethnicity; the relationship between nationhood and nationalism; sexual politics relating to nationalism and ethnicity; the problem of national identity in a multicultural society as well as surveying the problems and opportunities thrown up by different kinds of nationalism. By exploring various perspectives on a highly topical subject this book makes an important contribution to a better understanding of the workings of politics in today's world. -- Back cover.

A collection of essays analyzing America's counterculture during the 1960s and 1970s. Topics include sixties-era communes, films, attitudes towards sex, and issues facing Indians, blacks, and homosexuals.