Between National Character and an International Model: Parliaments in the Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Henk te Velde
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Character ◽  
International Model

American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Gerber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Illegal Immigration ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
National Character ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Anglo American

American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction traces three massive waves of immigration from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and analyzes the nature of immigration as a purposeful, structured activity, attitudes supporting or hostile to immigration, policies and laws regulating immigration, and the nature of and prospects for assimilation. There have been some dramatic developments since 2011, including the crisis along the southwestern border and the intense conflict over illegal immigration. The population of the United States has diverse sources: territorial acquisition through conquest and colonialism, the slave trade, and voluntary immigration. Many Americans value the memory of immigrant ancestors, and are sentimentally inclined to immigrant strivings. Alongside this sits the perception that immigration destabilizes social order, cultural coherence, job markets, and political alignments. The nearly 250 years of American nationhood has been characterized by both support for openness to immigration and embrace of a cosmopolitan formulation of American identity and for restrictions and assertions of belief in a core Anglo-American national character.

Conflicting obituaries: the Abyssinian ‘outlaw’ Debeb as treacherous bandit and romantic hero in late nineteenth-century Italian imagination

Modern Italy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-419
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Bruner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Character ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Romantic Hero ◽  
Public Persona ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Folk Hero ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

In 1886 the Abyssinian chief Debeb became a public figure in Italy as a rapacious colonial bandit. However, over the next five years he acquired additional public personas, even contradictory ones: as a condottiero ally, a ladies’ man, a traitor, a young Abyssinian aristocrat and pretender to an ancient throne, a chivalrous warrior, and a figure representing the frontier and an Africa mysterious and hidden to Europeans. Upon his 1891 death in combat, he was the subject of conflicting Italian press obituaries. For some commentators, Debeb exemplified treacherous and deceitful African character, an explanation for Italy's colonial disappointments and defeats. However, other commentators clothed him in a romanticised mystique and found in him martial and even chivalrous traits to admire and emulate. To this extent his persona blurred the line demarcating the African ‘other’. Although he first appeared to Italians as a bandit, the notion of the bandit as a folk hero (the ‘noble robber’ or ‘social bandit’, Hobsbawm) does not fit his case. A more fruitful approach is to consider his multi-faceted public persona as reflecting the ongoing Italian debate over ‘national character’ (Patriarca). In the figure of Debeb, public debates over colonialism and ‘national character’ merged, with each contributing to the other.

« Une société civilisée et religieuse »: Postrevolutionary French liberalism and the character of Europe

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-138
Author(s):  
Cheryl B. Welch
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Character ◽  
Singular Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Many ◽  
European Family

In nineteenth-century Europe there was a growing perception that the peoples within its borders exhibited distinctive “âmes nationales.” This forum attests to the many ways in which the idea of national character was theorized and debated from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, especially in relation to democracy and liberalism. At the same time, however, Europe itself was emerging as an increasingly singular space. Indeed, the European “family of nations” was often conceived as a group of siblings who manifested complementary excellences that helped to explain Europe’s emerging dominance in the world. Rather than considering what Separated national types, I explore in this essay the connection between two shared attributes that formed the basis of a new understanding of European kinship: civilization (or the capacity to achieve it) and Christianity.

The Victorians, Islam and the Idea of Progress

2019 ◽  
pp. 108-136
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
National Character ◽  
Term Trend ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Long Term Trend

This chapter assesses Victorian progress, and considers a marked shift in British thinking during the nineteenth century. After the comparative tolerance of the eighteenth century, the Victorian era saw a distinct deterioration in British attitudes towards Islam, culminating in an almost fanatical view of Muslims by the later nineteenth century. While there is a variety of explanations for the long-term trend, the fundamental one lay in the impact of the process of industrialisation that had set in during the late eighteenth century and that had left Britain apparently the world's leading power by the 1850s. Many Victorians convinced themselves that their success was underpinned by something distinctive in the English national character or experience. Even when confronted with the evidence produced by mid-century investigations into widespread poverty, many Victorians retained their self-confidence, arguing that if industrial development continued for another generation it would inevitably generate employment and spread prosperity for all who were able and willing to work.

PARSING GOD: CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE MEANING OF WORDS AND METAPHORS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY SOUTHERN AFRICA

2001 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM H. WORGER
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
National Character ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Literal Truth ◽  
The World

During the first half of the nineteenth century, European missionaries in southern Africa sought to establish their intellectual and moral authority over Africans and propagate the tenets of Christianity. Men like Jacob Döhne, Robert Moffat, John Colenso, Henry Callaway and others viewed a knowledge of African languages as key to disclosing ‘the secrets of national character’, to the translation and transmittal of ideas about the Christian ‘God’, and to accepting the ‘literal truth’ of the Bible. Africans, especially the Zulu king, Dingane, disputed these teachings in discussions about the existence of God, suitable indigenous names for such a being (including uThixo, modimo, and unkulunkulu), and his attributes (all-powerful, or merely old), arguing for the significance of metaphor rather than literalness in understanding the world.

John Stuart Mill on Race

Utilitas ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios Varouxakis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
National Character ◽  
Human Effort ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Racial Factor ◽  
Minor Extent

The article examines J. S. Mill's views on the significance of the racial factor in the formation of what he called ‘national character’. Mill's views are placed in the context of his time and are assessed in the light of the theories concerning these issues that were predominant in the nineteenth century. It is shown that Mill – although he did indulge himself in the discourse based on race, geography or climate to a minor extent – made strenuous efforts to discredit the deterministic implications of racial theories and to promote the idea that human effort and education could alter beyond recognition what were supposed to be the racially inherited characteristics of various human groups. Finally, Mill's attitude towards race is used as a case-study through which a contribution can be made to broader debates on how to categorize him.

The Fall of the Second French Empire

2012 ◽  
pp. 222-234
Author(s):  
Isaac Mayer Wise
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Civil War ◽  
National Character ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
French Empire ◽  
The Third ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
Current Events ◽  
The Universe

This chapter concerns a sermon capturing the outbreak of hostilities between France and Prussia which led to the founding of the Third French Republic. In addition, there was a widespread consensus among Christians and Jews alike at this period that historical and current events reflect the providential control of an all-powerful sovereign ruler of the universe in accordance with the principles of divine justice. German Christian preachers were eager to claim that the stunning German victory was God's punishment for the sinful failings of French national character and of French political philosophy. This providential explanation of the war is a central theme of the sermon conducted by Isaac Mayer Wise. Wise, one of the most influential American Jewish leaders of the nineteenth century, had honoured a pledge to remain silent on political and military issues during the Civil War; now he strongly endorsed from his pulpit the view that the French debacle was part of God's plan.

Conceptions of England and its Constitution in Nineteenth-Century French Political Thought

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
English Education ◽  
National Character ◽  
Industrial Growth

References to England abound in nineteenth-century French political thought and what interested French writers about England varied enormously. English education, agriculture, religion, morals, national character, social structure: all figured in their writings. Very few failed to take note of England's rapid industrial growth and commercial power. England, in the words of Eugène Buret, was ‘le pays privilégié pour les études sociales’. Few Frenchmen, however, developed an enthusiastic admiration for English philosophy in this period. Yet there was one prevailing and predominant theme in French writings about England.

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