On 6 July 2005, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2012 summer Olympic Games to the city of London, opening a new chapter in Great Britain 's rich Olympic history. Despite the prospect of hosting the summer Games for the third time since Pierre de Coubertin 's 1894 revival of the Olympic movement, the historical roots of British Olympism have received limited scholarly attention. With the conclusion of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the passing of the baton to London, Rule Britannia remedies that oversight.

This book uncovers Britain 's early Olympic involvement, revealing how the British public, media, and leading governmental officials were strongly opposed to international Olympic competition. It explores how the British Olympic Association focused on three main factors in the midst of widespread national opposition: it embraced early Olympian spectacles as a platform for maintaining a sporting union with Ireland, it fostered a greater sense of imperial identity with Britain 's white dominions, and it undertook an ambitious policy of athletic specialization designed to reverse the nation 's waning fortunes in international sport.

This book was previously published as a special issue of International Journal of the History of Sport.

"Author Anne Kane analyzes the intertwined cultural, political, and social transformations that occur during historical events by focusing specifically on the case of the Irish land war, a pivotal event in the formation of the modern Irish nation"--

Although television has developed into a major agent of the transnational and global flow of information and entertainment, television historiography and scholarship largely remains a national endeavour, partly due to the fact that television has been understood as a tool for the creation of national identity. But the breaking of the quasi-monopoly of public service broadcasters all over Europe in the 1980s has changed the television landscape, and cross-border television channels - with the help of satellite and the Internet - have catapulted the relatively closed television nations into the universe of globalized media channels. At least, this is the picture painted by the popular meta-narratives of European television history. Transnational Television History asks us to re-evaluate the function of television as a medium of nation-building in its formative years and to reassess the historical narrative that insists that European television only became transnational with the emergence of more commercial services and new technologies from the 1980s. It also questions some common assumptions in television historiography by offering some alternative perspectives on the complex processes of transnational circulation of television technology, professionals, programmes and aesthetics. This book was originally published as a special issue of Media History.

The present-day Irish Republic was created by a revolutionary elite which developed between 1858 and 1900. This book analyses the social origins of the revolutionaries who became rulers of Ireland after 1921, and examines their political ideologies and prejudices. The author argues that they were heavily influenced not only by ancient agrarian grievances and memories of the Famine, but also by contemporary Catholic abhorrence of the Protestant and secular world represented by England and America. Personal resentments also played their part; many felt their faith, their nation, and their class were slighted in the British Ireland of the period, and regarded themselves as morally superior not only to their British and Anglo-Irish rulers, but also to to the vast mass of their Catholic fellow-countrymen and co-religionists. Drawing on the evidence of private letters and diaries, and the writings of popular journalism, Nationalist Revolutionaries makes an original contribution to Irish historiography by reconstructing the private thoughts behind the political public faces.

Miroslav Hroch's Social Preconditions of National Revival has profoundly influenced the study of nationalism since it first appeared in English translation, particularly because of its famous three-phase model for describing and analyzing national movements in Eastern Europe. Contributors to this book explore Hroch's continued relevance to the field of nationalism studies with four case studies and two theoretical/historiographic essays. Two case studies apply Hroch's thinking to Eastern Europe in light of subsequent historiography, finding that Hroch's ideas remain useful for understanding national movements in Belarus and among the Kuban Cossacks. Two further studies apply Hroch's schema to the Mexican independence movement and contemporary Pakistan ? times and places that Hroch specifically excluded from his own considerations. The first theoretical contribution seeks to apply Begriffsgeschichte to Hroch's work; the second suggests that Hroch's phases form a useful typology of nationalism, thus facilitating communication between different branches of nationalism studies. Hroch ends the volume with his own commentary on the various contributions.

This book was published as a special issue of Nationalities Papers.

This book tells the dramatic story of the unexpected disintegration of the Soviet Union. The author draws on a wide range of sources to illustrate the growth of national awareness among the many subject peoples, partly promoted by the actions of the communists themselves. He concludes that, the efforts of Mikhail Gorbachev to reform the state he initially controlled, undermined and eventually destroyed the mechanisms that held the non-Russians in check.

"Postill's book will provide a stimulating read to anyone interested in the broad field of nationalism studies.a breakthrough attempt to bring nation building back on the agenda of media and communication research, and a valuable contribution to the field of media anthropology. Further comparative work in this area will hopefully give rise to a revised theory of nation building, one that acknowledges and theorizes the diversity of nation building processes, and the associated diversity of modernization projects, around the world." . H-Nation ..". very well written, lively, incisive and clear. Students will learn a lot about anthropology and media from this book... it should be recommended or essential reading for students." . Andrew Beatty, Brunel University "The book excellently traces the development of both print and electronic media, which are central in making the Iban Malaysian. It] contributes much to our understanding of the complex process of change that has occurred among the Ibans." . Asian Anthropology With the end of the Cold War and the proliferation of civil wars and "regime changes," the question of nation building has acquired great practical and theoretical urgency. From Eastern Europe to East Timor, Afghanistan and recently Iraq, the United States and its allies have often been accused of shirking their nation-building responsibilities as their attention - and that of the media -- turned to yet another regional crisis. While much has been written about the growing influence of television and the Internet on modern warfare, little is known about the relationship between media and nation building. This book explores, for the first time, this relationship by means of a paradigmatic case of successful nation building: Malaysia. Based on extended fieldwork and historical research, the author follows the diffusion, adoption, and social uses of media among the Iban of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo and demonstrates the wide-ranging process of nation building that has accompanied the Iban adoption of radio, clocks, print media, and television. In less than four decades, Iban longhouses ('villages under one roof') have become media organizations shaped by the official ideology of Malaysia, a country hastily formed in 1963 by conjoining four disparate territories. John Postill is a Research Fellow at the University of Bremen. He is currently studying e-government and ethnicity in Malaysia. Trained as an anthropologist at University College London, he has published a range of articles on the anthropology of media, with special reference to Malaysian Borneo.

Delivered From the Mouth of the Dragon: A Face To Face Encounter With Islamist Terrorism combines a critical analysis of Nigeria's nationality problem and a brutal personal account of how the author was placed under a fatwa for speaking out against Islamization. This well formed study argues that the precarious state of political affairs in Nigeria lay in a jihadist plan that has allowed the Boko Haram insurgency to emerge. The book also chronicles political repression against opponents of jihadism. It further underscores the vulnerability of the African political opposition class seeking asylum in Africa.

"Citizens of Europe?" looks at the emergence of a new mass European identity, and at the way symbols of European integration and the mass media have shaped and influenced it. It provides new and unprecedented empirical evidence on the progress of European identity in a comparative perspective between the 1970's and today, but also in depth quantitative evidence on the effects of symbols of Europe and the media on citizens' identity in Britain, France, and the Netherlands, and qualitative evidence based on focus groups on what Europe means to citizens.

The Lebanese have always lacked a common vision of their past. From the beginning Muslims and Christians have disagreed fundamentally over their country's historical legitimacy: Christians on the whole have affirmed it, Muslims have tended to emphasize Lebanon's place in a broader Arab history. Both groups have used nationalist ideas in a destructive game, which at a deeper level involves archaic loyalties and tribal rivalries. But Lebanon cannot afford these conflicting visions if it is to develop and maintain a sense of political community. In the course of his lively exposition, Salibi offers a major reinterpretation of Lebanese history and provides insights into the dynamic of Lebanon's recent conflict. He also gives an account of how the images of communities which underlie modern nationalism are created.

In the 1890s, most of the inhabitants of the west of Ireland experienced great poverty and hardship, living - as they did - on farms that were too small to provide them with a reasonable standard of living. By 1921, however, the living conditions of many of them had been transformed by a series of Land Acts that revolutionized the system of land holding in Ireland. This book examines agrarian conflict in Ireland during the neglected period between the death of Parnell (1891) and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), and demonstrates that land reform was often introduced in response to popular protest.
Whereas earlier accounts have tended to examine Irish political history from the perspective of British governments or nationalist leaders, this book breaks new ground by providing an account of popular political activity in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland. For the first time, the social background, ideas, and activities of grass-roots political activists are systematically explored, as are the class conflicts that threatened to fragment the unity of the nationalist movement in rural communities. By reinserting the activism of ordinary people into the broader historical record, Dr Campbell suggests new interpretations of a number of critical developments including the failure of 'constructive unionism', the origins of Sinn Fein, and the nature and dynamics of the Irish revolution (1916-23). Using the recently released archives of the Bureau of Military History, the story of the war of independence in the western county of Galway is told in the words of both the Irish Republican Army and its enemies.
Land and Revolution transforms our understanding of latenineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish history, and also contributes to comparative studies of nationalism, revolution, and agrarian protest.

This volume examines the critical factors and processes by which the Provisional Irish Republican movement campaign from 1969 to 1998 transformed a once acquiescent nationalist population in Northern Ireland into a counterpublic of resistance demanding national self-determination and social justice. Considering the establishment of Irish Republican community institutions, prison protests, Republican Feminism, and Provisional IRA media and communications, this volume explores the emergence of Republicanism as a mass social movement in the nationalist Catholic ghettos and rural regions of Northern Ireland in the 1970s - a development that helped to sustain the armed struggle of the Provisional Irish Republican Army for three decades. An examination of the emergence and transformative power of the counterpublic discourse and action of the Irish Republican movement, this volume provides a framework for conceptualizing counterpublics in social movement studies. As such it will appeal to scholars of sociology, history, and politics with interests in social movements and mobilization.

Will be of interest to international organisations and policymakers as well as students and academics. Builds on a well-established discourse on the international migration conundrum and "borderization", with most of the empirical evidence embedded mainly in the African experience.

National minorities and their behaviour have become a central topic in comparative politics in the last few decades. Using the relationship between the state of Israel and the Arab national minority as a case study, this book provides a thorough examination of minority nationalism and state-minority relations in Israel.

Placing the case of the Arab national minority in Israel within a comparative framework, the author analyses major debates taking place in the field of collective action, social movements, civil society and indigenous rights. He demonstrates the impact of the state regime on the political behaviours of the minorities, and sheds light on the similarities and differences between various types of minority nationalisms and the nature of the relationship such minorities could have with their states.

Drawing empirical and theoretical conclusions that contribute to studies of Israeli politics, political minorities, indigenous populations and conflict issues, this book will be a valuable reference for students and those in policy working on issues around Israeli politics, Palestinian politics and the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Drawing from in-depth interviews with a group of Puerto Ricans who requested a certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship, legal and historical documents, and official reports not publicly accessible, Jacqueline Font-Guzman shares how some Puerto Ricans construct and experience their citizenship and national identity at the margins of the US nation. Winner of the 2015 Juridical Book of the Year in the category of 'Essay Promoting Critical Thinking and Analysis of Juridical and Social Issues.'

This is a comparative study of the national significance of the classical revival which marked English and French art during the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the main focus of artists' interest in classical Greece, was the body of the Greek athlete. It explains this interest, first, by artists' contact with the art of Pheidias and Polycletus which portrayed it; and second, by the claim, made by physical anthropologists, that the classical body typified the race of the European nations.

The contributions in this volume analyse issues of national and regional identity during a key phase of nation-state formation in mid-nineteenth century Europe. The authors provide local studies of the national question in regions on the border between Germany and Austria on the one hand, and Italy and Austria on the other. By asking how contemporaries articulated regional and national identities, the book offers a fresh prospective on the process of nationalization in modern German, Austrian and Italian histories.

Origins of Pan-Africanism: Henry Sylvester Williams, Africa, and the African Diaspora recounts the life story of the pioneering Henry Sylvester Williams, an unknown Trinidadian son of an immigrant carpenter in the late-19th and early 20th century. Williams, then a student in Britain, organized the African Association in 1897, and the first-ever Pan-African Conference in 1900. He is thus the progenitor of the OAU/AU. Some of those who attended went on to work in various pan-African organizations in their homelands. He became not only a qualified barrister, but the first Black man admitted to the Bar in Cape Town, and one of the first two elected Black borough councilors in London. These are remarkable achievements for anyone, especially for a Black man of working-class origins in an era of gross racial discrimination and social class hierarchies. Williams died in 1911, soon after his return to his homeland, Trinidad. Through original research, Origins of Pan-Africanism: Henry Sylvester Williams, Africa, and the African Diaspora is set in the social context of the times, providing insight not only into a remarkable man who has been heretofore virtually written out of history, but also into the African Diaspora in the UK a century ago.

This text describes how the French Revolution, which seemed to promise an era of Franco-British partnership, led to an even more bitter estrangement between the two nations. Both the British and French peoples saw the revolution of 1789 as offering the prospect of a new Franco-British partnership. These hopes sound foundered on old suspicions and new ideological divergences. The result was to confirm the traditional perception of each nation's own identity, centred on the state in France and the people in Britain. This study illuminates late 18th-century nationalism and xenophobia.

"These thought-provoking essays on the Serbian ethno-myth make this book a valuable contribution to the literature on the former Yugoslavia."
--"The Journal of Slavic Military Studies"

"The newspaper articles . . . offer incisive, ironic, and often witty analyses of nationalist discourse found in a wide variety of texts, including political speeches."
-- " Slavic Review "

Symbols are central to politics. In this groundbreaking work, Ivan Colevic investigates the symbols of politics and the politics of symbols in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Hercegovnia. The first part of the work, "The Serbian Political Ethno-Myth," analyzes Serbian political mythology about the nation and nationalism in particular, as well as the role of narratives in political discourse, and notions of time, nature, borders, heroism, and national identity.

The second part, "From the History of Serbian Political Mythology," is concerned with the historical development of Serbian political myths. The third part, "Characters and Figures of Power," comprises case studies which analyze political symbolism, myth, rhetoric, and propaganda. These studies are based on examples gleaned from the Serbian press, academic texts and literature, political speeches, and from everyday life.

Finally, Colevic investigates the relationship between the masses, mass culture, and politics, including the recruitment of soccer fans into the war in the former Yugoslavia, and how symbolic communication was used by Serbia's anti-Milosevic opposition.

Organised as an experiment testing the hypothesis that behind the hottest political issues of the quarter-century after the Cold War lies globalisation of national consciousness, this collection of essays unites authors from the four corners of the world. They focus on democratisation and its failure in Russia, transformations of identity in Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, North and South America, and South-East Asia, the rise of militant and political Islam, and the eruption of China onto the world stage. The volume makes the argument that globalisation we are witnessing is, for the most part, the globalisation of competitive and antagonistic nationalism, which spreads to areas where it was not known earlier and into the sphere of religion, ostensibly indifferent to it. Collectively, these essays prove that nationalism remains the organising principle of politics inside nations as well as at transnational and international levels.

This book focuses on the "anticlerical industry"--the mass-production of anticlerical newspapers, novels, cartoons, and other propaganda forms produced by republican muckrakers, journalists, and politicians, especially Jose Nakens--in order to demonstrate the centrality of anticlericalism to the debates regarding alternate forms of government in Spain, and competing visions of Spanish identity in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. Utilizing anticlericalism, radical republicans sought to call into question the legitimacy of the monarchy by tying it to what they argued was a corrupt and abusive Catholic Church and clergy in the hopes of paving the way to the coming of a lasting Republican polity.

Zionism, as it emerged in the late 19th century, called for a grand effort to create an independent, self-governing Jewish nation. By publicly raising the flag of autonomy, it was the Zionists, ultimately, who accomplished this truly revolutionary change, transforming the structure of Jewry, its condition among the nations, and the play of conflicting religious and secular beliefs.
Completing the most comprehensive and thorough examination to date of the rise and consolidation of this remarkable movement, David Vital's Zionism: The Crucial Phase is the third and final addition to the critically acclaimed history of Zionism. The first volume in the series, The Origins of Zionism covered the years from 1881 to 1897, and was followed by Zionism: The Formative Years which continued the history through 1906--winning both the 1983 Kenneth B. Smilen/Present Tense Literary Award and the Jewish Chronicle/Wingate Award. The final volume considers the critical period on the eve of World War I, when Zionist leadership was faltering, the promise it had held out to the crushed and impoverished Jews of Europe had drastically diminished, and it appeared as if the movement was already in decline. Studying the sources and consequences of this decline and the dramatic and unexpected wartime recovery, Crucial Phase dispels the myths and legends surrounding British policy on Zionism under Lloyd George and Balfour and sheds light on the revolutionary nature of Zionism and its dedicated followers.

"This book brings together a distinguished group of historians to explore the previously neglected relationship between nationalism and urban history. It reveals the contrasting experiences of nationalism in different societies and milieus. It will help historians to reassess the role of nationalism both inside and outside the nation state. "--

Using Australian history as a case study, this collection explores the ways national identities still resonate in historical scholarship and reexamines key moments in Australian history through a transnational lens, raising important questions about the unique context of Australia's national narrative. The book examines the tension between national and transnational perspectives, attempting to internationalize the often parochial nation-based narratives that characterize national history. Moving from the local and personal to the global, encompassing comparative and international research and drawing on the experiences of researchers working across nations and communities, this collection brings together diverging national and transnational approaches and asks several critical research questions: What is transnational history? How do new transnational readings of the past challenge conventional national narratives and approaches? What are implications of transnational and international approaches on Australian history? What possibilities do they bring to the discipline? What are their limitations? And finally, how do we understand the nation in this transnational moment?