Overview

Nationalism has reasserted itself today as the political force of our times, remaking European politics wherever one looks. Britain is no exception, and in the midst of Brexit, it has even become a vanguard of nationalism's confident return to the mainstream. Intellectual attempts to account for nationalism's resurgence have however floundered. Desperately trying to read nationalism through one overarching cause - as capitalist crisis, as cultural backlash, or as social media led anti-Establishment politics - these accounts have proven woefully inadequate. This book argues that the only way to understand nationalism is through nationalism itself. To understand it as the key force of modernity that calls upon all existing ideological traditions in asserting its appeal: whether it is liberal, conservative, neoliberal or left-wing. This ideological clamour that characterises today's British nationalism requires both recognition and theorisation. A meaningful understanding of new nationalism must reckon with the ideological range animating it and the deeply hostile aversion to different racial minorities that pervades its respective ideologies. Drawing on a variety of cultural and political themes - ranging from Corbyn's dithering, the cult of Churchillism, the neoliberal fixation with a 'point-system' immigration policy, the muscular secularism of Richard Dawkins and friends, fears that the white working class have 'become black', and even simply the strange appeal of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones - this book provides a dazzling but always detailed study of how nationalism is the politics of today only because it is a politics of everything. -- .

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9781526126146

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Reviews

'Sivamohan Valluvan has written a nuanced, carefully articulated, and admirably clear analysis mapping the new nationalism gripping our times, its racial and xenophobic articulations as well as the intersections of its neoliberal and neoconservative prompts, inspirations, and expressions. Written in the spirit of Stuart Hall's and Wendy Brown's work, Valluvan focuses especially on contemporary Britain but in ways more widely resonant. A compelling account advancing and deepening our comprehension of the driving issues facing us today.' David Theo Goldberg, University of California 'As nationalism rises to a fever pitch across the political spectrum, Valluvan pulls no punches in arguing against the brutal politics of border walls, migration raids and retrograde patriotism. His work is a light in dark times.' Eleanor Penny, Senior Editor at Novara Media and Online Editor at Red Pepper Magazine -- .

Author Information

Sivamohan Valluvan is an Assistant Professor in the department of Sociology at the University of Warwick

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