Overview

The west has long gripped the imagination. In Atlantic Isles, Gareth Roddy examines the cultural and political prominence of the ‘westward gaze’, which flourished in late-nineteenth century Britain and Ireland. From Cornish cliffs and Welsh mountains to Hebridean islands and the Connemara highlands, the west was an imagined geography that transcended the national territories of these isles. In the west, geologists uncovered ancient layers of rock, ethnologists described older racial ‘types’, philologists looked for the survival of Celtic languages, and antiquarians and archaeologists marvelled at megalithic monuments at the Atlantic coastline. The book draws on wide-ranging contemporary sources, including works of geology, philology, ethnology, history, geography, archaeology, folklore, literature, sociology and an extensive collection of travel writing that popularised western landscapes among readers and tourists who explored the increasingly accessible west by road, rail, and steamer. Atlantic Isles reveals that western landscapes were especially powerful spaces of modern enchantment, where stories of sunken lands and mythical islands produced a sense of mystery and wonder in a supposedly disenchanted world. The significance of western landscapes for national identities is well known, but this book demonstrates that the west was also central to debates about Britishness and to the bold attempt to construct a narrative of multinational union that claimed deep historical roots at a time when the subject of Home Rule periodically dominated political debate.

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9781915249210

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Reviews

'The people of the British Isles have long been fascinated by the idea of the west. Atlantic Isles skilfully explores the roots of this fascination. It shows how the west came to be seen as an important source of spiritual nourishment and identity amidst the change and dislocation of modernity. Britishness, in Roddy’s compelling account, emerges as more complex, more variously constituted and more Atlantic in its orientation than is often assumed.' — Paul Readman, Professor of Modern British History, King's College London, UK and Co-editor, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

Author Information

Gareth Roddy is a Lecturer in Modern British and Irish History at Northumbria University. His research focuses on the cultural and political history of British and Irish landscapes, borders, heritage, and travel.

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