How did the intellectually intimidating, industrious architect of the New Labour project become its maligned and feckless undertaker? In this scathing, witty indictment of Gordon Brown's tenure as prime minister, Christopher Harvie says goodbye to Broon by exploring the Britain New Labour helped create. It is a place where the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider and manufacturing has been replaced by 'retail, entertainment and recreation' (for which read shopping, gambling and drinking). Now that the casino economy has veered wildly out of control, and our public utilities and industries have been auctioned to the highest bidder, Broonland is both an essential anatomy of a country on the brink of collapse and a caustic, darkly funny portrait of a decade that took Britain from boom through bust to busted.
This is a new portrait of society and identity in high industrial Britain, focusing on the sea as connector, not barrier. It argues that the port cities and their hinterlands formed a 'floating commonwealth' whose interaction with one another and with nationalist and imperial politics created an intense political and cultural synergy.
Christopher Harvie, one of the country's leading historians and political writers, discusses the Scottish land, people, and culture in a gripping narrative. Scotland: A Short History, presents a clear history of Scotland from prehistoric times until the present day, ranging from the shaping of the kingdom, medieval Scotland, reformation and dual monarchy, union and enlightenment to industrialization and the massive changes witnessed in the twentieth century. He deals mercilessly with oldcliches, and applies the results of new research, placing recent developments within a historical and cultural context.
Scotland's history is a subject of endless fascination. Christopher Harvie gives a brief outline for the beginner. The role of the Kirk, the affairs of kings and queens and would-be monarchs are covered. Then Scotland's effort to expand her economy through the Darien Scheme which lead to the Union with England is detailed.
When the Scottish Parliament sat in Edinburgh for the first time in nearly three hundred years it was the climax of Europe's most peaceable and legalistic national movement. But dull it wasn't. In war and peace, from Empire to Europe, through the rise and fall of industry, the cause of self-government has been endlessly reinvented and remodelled, sometimes surviving more as a poetic fashion rather than as a political campaign. But it got there in the end.The Road To Home Rule documents not just the demonstrations, the party politics and international upheavals which swept the Scottish cause along - and all too frequently adrift - during the twentieth century, but also shows how it swam in the tides of social change and cultural inspiration. From Keir Hardie's and William Gladstone's promises to Tony Blair's and Donald Dewar's delivery, via a route populated by the larger-than-life characters and ideas of Hugh MacDiarmid, Winnie Ewing, Michael Forsyth, round the milestones and millstones of Conventions, Covenants, Wee Magic Stanes and Bravehearts - all Scottish life is there.With a core essay by the historian Christopher Harvie and the political correspondent Peter Jones, the book's 100 illustrations cast a cool eye on the grandeurs and miseries encountered on the long way to Holyrood.Key Features:*Highly illustrated with 150 black and white photographs, cartoons and other images*Substantial captions to place the images in context*Written by two 'names': Chris Harvie is a well-known Scottish historian and Peter Jones is a well-regarded journalist*A fascinating and entertaining story of the road to home rule
John Buchan wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps while he was seriously ill at the beginning of the First World War. In it he introduces his most famous hero, Richard Hannay, who, despite claiming to be an `ordinary fellow', is caught up in the dramatic race against a plot to devastate the British war effort. Hannay is hunted across the Scottish moors by police and spy-ring alike, and must outwit his intelligent and pitiless enemy in the corridors of Whitehall and, finally, at the site of the mysterious thirty-nine steps. The best-known of Buchan's thrillers, The Thirty-Nine Steps has been continuously in print since first publication and has been filmed three times, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. In this, the only critical edition, Christopher Harvie's introduction interweaves the writing of the tale with the equally fascinating story of how John Buchan, publisher and lawyer, came in from the cold and, via The Thirty-Nine Steps, ended the war as spy-master and propaganda chief. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew show the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperial zenith, and the continuing tensions within the nations and classes of the 'union state'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Chris Harvie guides you through Sir Walter Scott's life and exciting times, including Scott's career in Edinburgh and the Borders, as invalid, as schoolboy, lawyer, translator and writer.
In this challenging study, Harvie alters the ways in which we have traditionally surveyed the European past by setting the positive and negative aspects of the present European situation in their historical context.
This introductory history takes Scotland through two world wars and subsequent social exhaustion, through the re-energising adjustments loosely referred to as 'the sixties' to a final endgame of Union versus Independence. The novel structure of Harvie's history mirrors that of a grand engineering project, or a structure as complex as the Forth Railway Bridge: 'three periods of change rendered as towers, and two great cantilevered arches of life-in-common, over which day-to-day life proceeds'.
In this challenging study, Harvie alters the ways in which we have traditionally surveyed the European past by setting the positive and negative aspects of the present European situation in their historical context.
First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew show the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperial zenith, and the continuing tensions within the nations and classes of the 'union state'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
An authoritative survey of Scottish social and political history from 1707 to the present day. This fourth edition brings the story and historiography of Scottish society and politics up to date.
An historical and critical work on the role of fiction in British politics, focusing on Disraeli, Galt, Eliot, Trollope, Wells and Cary among others. This witty book is the first treatment of its subject for nearly seventy years.
This is a new portrait of society and identity in high industrial Britain, focusing on the sea as connector, not barrier. It argues that the port cities and their hinterlands formed a 'floating commonwealth' whose interaction with one another and with nationalist and imperial politics created an intense political and cultural synergy.
When the Scottish Parliament sat in Edinburgh for the first time in nearly three hundred years it was the climax of Europe's most peaceable and legalistic national movement. But dull it wasn't. In war and peace, from Empire to Europe, through the rise and fall of industry, the cause of self-government has been endlessly reinvented and remodelled, sometimes surviving more as a poetic fashion rather than as a political campaign. But it got there in the end.The Road To Home Rule documents not just the demonstrations, the party politics and international upheavals which swept the Scottish cause along - and all too frequently adrift - during the twentieth century, but also shows how it swam in the tides of social change and cultural inspiration. From Keir Hardie's and William Gladstone's promises to Tony Blair's and Donald Dewar's delivery, via a route populated by the larger-than-life characters and ideas of Hugh MacDiarmid, Winnie Ewing, Michael Forsyth, round the milestones and millstones of Conventions, Covenants, Wee Magic Stanes and Bravehearts - all Scottish life is there.With a core essay by the historian Christopher Harvie and the political correspondent Peter Jones, the book's 100 illustrations cast a cool eye on the grandeurs and miseries encountered on the long way to Holyrood.Key Features:*Highly illustrated with 150 black and white photographs, cartoons and other images*Substantial captions to place the images in context*Written by two 'names': Chris Harvie is a well-known Scottish historian and Peter Jones is a well-regarded journalist*A fascinating and entertaining story of the road to home rule
How did the intellectually intimidating, industrious architect of the New Labour project become its maligned and feckless undertaker? In this scathing, witty indictment of Gordon Brown's tenure as prime minister, Christopher Harvie says goodbye to Broon by exploring the Britain New Labour helped create. It is a place where the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider and manufacturing has been replaced by 'retail, entertainment and recreation' (for which read shopping, gambling and drinking). Now that the casino economy has veered wildly out of control, and our public utilities and industries have been auctioned to the highest bidder, Broonland is both an essential anatomy of a country on the brink of collapse and a caustic, darkly funny portrait of a decade that took Britain from boom through bust to busted.
First published in 1977, Scotland and Nationalism, Christopher Harvie's acclaimed study of Scottish culture and politics since the Union of 1707, has been extensively rewritten to bring the story entirely up-to-date, drawing on the remarkable output of Scottish historians and writers in more recent years. A new chapter discusses the whole of the Referendum and Devolution, and a rewritten last chapter examines topics like the Dunblane massacre, forms of popular culture, and the development of nationalist feeling in a wider cultural context. Beneath the political level, but interacting with it, Harvie sees the evolution of a "civic republicanism" which, unless checked by real measures of federalism, renders the future of the Union unpromising.
Tired of tragic stories, Chris Harvie sets out to see the positive side of the ‘Dark Continent’ and to enjoy its life and laughter. Do Not Take This Road to El-Karama is the entertaining account of an epic road trip that takes him from his home outside the Kruger National Park to the banks of the Nile in Uganda – and back again. In his haphazard and somewhat eccentric travels, Harvie encounters missionaries and mechanics, locals and ex-pats, rascals and rogues. Delving into his own mixed British and South African identity, he tries to fathom – in his trademark witty and sardonic style – the post-independence national character of the southern, central, and east African countries through which he and his companions pass. Delightfully opinionated, brimming with interesting facts, questionable comment and dubious speculations, this book is essential reading for anyone with more than a passing interest in Africa, travel, history and people; in a good read; or simply in being alive.
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