: The Historical Novel and Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century England. . Nicholas Rance.

1976 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-522
Author(s):  
Avrom Fleishman
Author(s):  
Nele Bemong

Between 1830 and 1850, practically out of nowhere there came into beinga truly 'Belgian' literature, written boch in Flemish and in French, but aimedat a single goal: the creation of a Belgian past and the conscruction of aBelgian national identity. The historical novel played a crucial role in thisconscruction and representation of a collective memory for the Belgian statejust out of the cradle. The prefaces to these historical novels are characterizedboth by the central role granted to the representacion of Flanders as the cradleof nineteenth-century Belgium, and by the organically and religiously inspiredimagery. Attempts were made to create an intimate genealogical relationshipwith the forefathers, in order to make the Belgian citizens feel closer to theirrich heritage. Through the activation of specific recollections from theimmense archive of the collective cultural memory, Belgian independencefound its legitimization both towards the international community andtowards the Belgian people.


Author(s):  
Michael Sonenscher

This chapter discusses how the very particular setting in which the emergence of the sans-culottes in their now familiar guise occurred goes some way towards explaining why the mixture of descriptive and causal claims built into the old master concepts of class or sovereignty of French Revolutionary historiography have never been able to provide much of an explanation of either its content or course, at least without the more complicated assumptions supplied by an assortment of nineteenth-century philosophies of history. Reconstructing that setting, on the other hand, does go some way towards explaining what led to the fusion between high politics and popular politics that occurred in France in the winter of 1791–2.


Author(s):  
Nick Mansfield

In common with its companion volume - Soldiers as Workers – Class, employment, conflict and the nineteenth century military (2016), this study argues that class is the primary means of understanding the topic. Focusing on rank and file soldiers it concludes that they were not a separate caste. Instead, soldiering was often just a phase in civilian working lives. The nineteenth century was overshadowed by the mass mobilisation required for the generation-long French Wars and concurrent Industrial Revolution, with emerging working-class popular politics. The chapter reviews developing working class literacy and subsequent growth of rank and file memoirs, which are an important source for this study. The chapter stresses the importance of the new barrack system in the UK and the growth of British Empire, both of which had profound consequences for British society.


Author(s):  
Mary Wills

The chapter examines how naval officers engaged with the cornerstones of the British abolitionist agenda: religion, humanitarianism, morality and concepts of national identity. As most nineteenth-century naval officers came from the middle or upper-middle classes, they were exposed to a culture of anti-slavery sentiment in popular politics, literature and the press. These ideas had a significant impact on how they conceived the nature of their duty as naval personnel and their identity as Britons. Many testimonies of naval suppression offer emotion, insight and conviction regarding the anti-slavery cause, often driven by religious belief, and particularly the rise of evangelicalism in the navy. Yet there was no obligation for naval officers serving on the West Africa squadron to be committed abolitionists. Others held more ambiguous views, particularly as attitudes regarding slavery and race evolved and hardened as the century progressed.


Author(s):  
Malcolm Chase

Though part of what might be termed historians’ ‘mental furniture’, popular politics is an elastic term that evades close definition. This chapter suggests some defining principles and characteristics of popular political activity. It then takes a broadly chronological form and identifies in the first half of the nineteenth century a diminishing resort to violence and the growing importance of memory and commemoration (notably in Scotland and Wales, less so in England). It goes on to examine the content of popular liberalism and the apparent ‘taming’ of popular politics in the twentieth century. It ends by suggesting that the forms popular politics had increasingly taken by the turn of the millennium seem to indicate a revival of older modes of contesting power.


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