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The TransAtlantic reconsidered brings together established experts from Atlantic History and Transatlantic Studies – two fields that are closely connected in their historical and disciplinary development as well as with regard to the geographical area of their interest. Questions of methodology and boundaries of periodization tend to separate these research fields. However, in order to understand the Atlantic World and transatlantic relations today, Atlantic History and Transatlantic Studies should be considered together. The scholars represented in this volume have helped to shape, re-shape, and challenge the narrative(s) of the Atlantic World and can thus (re-)evaluate its conceptual basis in view of historiographical developments and contemporary challenges. This volume thus documents and reflects on the changes within Transatlantic Studies during the last decades. New perspectives on research reconceptualize how we think about the Atlantic World. At a time when many political observers perceive a crisis in transatlantic relations, critical evaluation of past narratives and frameworks will provide an academic foundation to move forward.
American literature and Irish culture, 1910–1955: the politics of enchantment discusses how and why American modernist writers turned to Ireland at various stages during their careers. By placing events such as the Celtic Revival and the Easter Rising at the centre of the discussion, it shows how Irishness became a cultural determinant in the work of American modernists. Each chapter deals with a different source of influence, considering the impact of family, the Celtic Revival, rural mythmaking, nationalist politics and the work of W. B. Yeats on American modernists’ writings. It is the first study to extend the analysis of Irish influence on American literature beyond racial, ethnic or national frameworks.
Through close readings, a sustained focus on individual writers, and in-depth archival research, American literature and Irish culture, 1910–1955 provides a balanced and structured approach to the study of the complexities of American modernist writers’ responses to Ireland. Offering new readings of familiar literary figures – including Fitzgerald, Moore, O’Neill, Steinbeck and Stevens – it makes for essential reading for students and academics working on twentieth-century American and Irish literature and culture, and transatlantic studies.
these developments ‘marked a watershed in transatlantic relations’. 1 Some scholars have since argued for ‘a new and constructive Transatlantic Bargain for the twenty-first-century’. 2 Against this background and as we consign the twentieth century to history (chapter 2), 3 while major shifts ripple through global politics, how do we as academics assess the Atlantic World? It is time to critically reconsider the concept of the Atlantic World and the field of Transatlantic Studies. The birth of a
This book examines how intangible aspects of international relations – including identity, memory, representation, and symbolic perception – have helped to stimulate and sustain the Anglo-American special relationship. Drawing together world-leading and emergent scholars, this volume breaks new ground by applying the theories and methodologies of the ‘cultural turn’ in diplomatic history to the study of Anglo-American relations. It contends that matters of culture have been far more important to the special relationship than previously allowed in a field hitherto dominated by interest-based interpretations of American and British foreign policies. Fresh analyses of cultural symbols, discourses, and ideologies fill important gaps in our collective understanding of the special relationship’s operation and expose new analytical spaces in which we can re-evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Designed to breathe new life into old debates about the relationship’s purported specialness, this book offers a multidisciplinary exploration of literary representations, screen representations, political representations, representations in memory, and the roles of cultural connections and constructs that have historically influenced elite decision-making and sculpted popular attitudes toward and expectations of the special relationship. This book will be of particular interest to students and informed readers of Anglo-American relations, foreign policy, and diplomatic history, as well as all those who are interested in the power of culture to impact international relations.
Fifty years ago Enoch Powell made national headlines with his 'Rivers of Blood' speech, warning of an immigrant invasion in the once respectable streets of Wolverhampton. This local fixation brought the Black Country town into the national spotlight, yet Powell's unstable relationship with Wolverhampton has since been overlooked. Drawing from oral history and archival material, this book offers a rich local history through which to investigate the speech, bringing to life the racialised dynamics of space during a critical moment in British history. What was going on beneath the surface in Wolverhampton and how did Powell's constituents respond to this dramatic moment? The research traces the ways in which Powell's words reinvented the town and uncovers highly contested local responses. While Powell left Wolverhampton in 1974, the book returns to the city to explore the collective memories of the speech that continue to reverberate. In a contemporary period of new crisis and division, examining the shadow of Powell allows us to reflect on racism and resistance from 1968 to the present day.
. Notes 1 J. Clyde Mitchell , ‘ Typicality and the Case Study ,’ in Roy F. Ellen (ed.), Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct ( London : Academic Press , 1984 ), 228 – 241 , at 239 . 2 Akira Iriye , ‘ Culture ,’ Journal of American History , 77 : 1 ( 1990 ), 100 . 3 Steve Marsh , ‘“ Global Security: US–UK Relations”: Lessons for the Special Relationship?,’ Journal of Transatlantic Studies , 10 : 2 ( 2012 ), 182 – 199 ; Steve Marsh , ‘ Beyond Essential: Britons and the Anglo-American Special Relationship ,’ Journal of
While Atlantic History received its organizational centre with the ‘International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World’, established by Bernard Bailyn in 1995 at Harvard University, 32 transatlantic scholars created their Transatlantic Studies Association (TSA) in 2002, which was initially based at Dundee University and which publishes The Journal of Transatlantic Studies . 33 The concept of Transatlantic History espoused by this organization and its journal proves to be even more restrictive than the concept of Atlantic History. The editors of The Journal
Transatlantic Studies , 12 : 2 ( 2014 ), 140 – 162 . 30 Benedict Anderson , Imagined Communities ( London : Verso , 2002 ). 31 Sam Edwards , ‘ The Architecture of a Myth: Constructing and Commemorating Churchill’s Special Relationship, c .1919–69, ’ in Alan P. Dobson and Steve Marsh (eds), Churchill and the Anglo-American Special Relationship ( London : Routledge , 2017 ), 202 – 222 . 32 James H. Lea and John R. Hutchinson , The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln ( New York : Houghton Mifflin Co ., 1909 ). 33 Sam Edwards , ‘ From
’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 13:4 (2016), 26–46. 5 S. Dockrill, Britain’s Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice between Europe and the World? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); P.L. Hahn, The United States, Great Britain and Egypt, 1945–1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); R. Takeyh, The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The US, Britain and Nasser’s Egypt, 1953–57 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). 6 On the UN and decolonisation see M. Berger, ‘After the Third World? History
-American Relations: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994), pp. 1–10. 31 Steve Marsh, ‘September 11 and Anglo-American relations: Reaffirming the Special Relationship’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 1:1, Supplement (2003), 56–75; Steve Marsh and John Baylis, ‘The Anglo-American “Special Relationship”: The Lazarus of International Relations’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 17:1 (2006), 173–211. 32 For instance: John Dumbrell and Axel Schäfer (eds.), America’s Special Relationships (London: Routledge, 2009). 33 David Dimbleby and David Reynolds, An Ocean