The Nations Of Wales

Opens up a period in Welsh cultural history that has been almost completely overlooked First monograph to explore Welsh history between 1890-1914

Certain simple and stereotypical images of Wales strike an immediate chord with the public, both in Wales itself and beyond its borders. For much of the twentieth century, the country was thought of as ‘The Valleys’, a land of miners and choirs and rugby clubs. This image of a ‘Proletarian Wales’ (with its attendant Socialist politics) dominated popular imagination, just as the image of ‘Nonconformist Wales’ – a Wales of chapels and of a grimly puritan society – had gripped the imagination of the High Victorian era. But what of the Wales of the late Victorian and Edwardian decades? What image of Wales prevailed at that time of revolutionary social, economic, cultural, religious and political change? This book argues that several competing images of Welshness were put in circulation during that time, and proceeds to examine several of the most influential of these as they took the form of literary texts.

"In The Four Nations, Frank Welsh offers a lively narrative history of the four component parts of the British Isles - England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Moving from the Roman period, which first defined many of the current internal boundaries, through the present day, Welsh describes the history of each nation, their interactions, and the impacts of crises ranging from the Norman Invasion to the Protestant Reformation to the two world wars of the twentieth century. Along the way, Welsh questions many cherished illusions and poses some awkward questions: to what extent were Scotland, Ireland, and Wales victims of predatory English aggression? How serious is the frequently invoked specter of national fragmentation?"--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This book looks at the fundamental components of national identity as understood by ordinary nation members, and the way in which it is mobilised by political elites. Drawing on an original case comparison between Wales and the Basque Country, the author suggests there are many commonalities between these two nations, particularly around the fundamentals of their national identities. However, differences occur in terms of degree of intensity of feeling and around the politicisation of identity, with more entrenched and hostile political positioning in the Basque Country than Wales. Through a multi-level comparison, the book generates insights into national identity as a theoretical concept and in a ‘stateless nation’ context. It argues for national identity's intangible, yet polemical, nature, looking at the primordialist way it is understood, its permanence and importance, coupled with its lack of everyday salience and consequent obligations.

This book explains the background to and effect of the law passed by the National Assembly of Wales, giving general effect to the UNCRC in the exercise of governmental powers, both in terms of furtherance of children’s rights in Wales and in terms of its implications for multi-level governance spanning the local to international laws and structures. It presents studies on several key policy areas where issues of children’s human rights are prominent, for example child poverty, special educational needs and health provision, treatment of asylum seekers and traveller communities. It also examines the key issues of accountability and civic participation, including the questions of involvement of children and young people.

The State of the Nations 2003 is the third publication of a major research programme into devolution in the United Kingdom, published on behalf of the Constitution Unit at University College London.

This is the first volume to examine how the history of Wales was written in a period that saw the emergence of professional historiography, largely focused on the nation, across Europe and in the United States. It thus sets Wales in the context of recent work on national history writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and, more particularly, offers a Welsh perspective on the ways in which history was written in small, mainly stateless, nations. The comparative dimension is fundamental to the volume's aim, highlighting what was distinctive about Welsh historical writing and showing how the Welsh experience mirrors and illuminates broader historiographical developments. The book begins with an introduction that uses the concept of historical culture as a way of exploring the different strands of historiography covered in the collection, providing orientation to the chapters that follow. These are divided into four sections: 'Contexts and Backgrounds', 'Amateurs and Popularizers', 'Creating Academic Disciplines', and 'Comparative Perspectives'. All these themes are then drawn together in the conclusion to examine how far Welsh historians exemplify widespread trends in the writing of national history, and thereby point-up common themes that emerge from the volume and clarify its broader significance for students of historiography.