Description
Book SynopsisWhat makes a person call a particular place ''home''? Does it follow simply from being born there? Is it the result of a language shared with neighbours or attachment to a familiar landscape? Perhaps it is a piece of music, or a painting, or even a travelogue that captures the essence of home. And what about the sense of belonging that inspires nationalist or local autonomy movements? Each of these can be a marker of identity, but all are ambiguous.
Where you were born has a different meaning if, like so many modern Germans, you have moved on and now live elsewhere. Representing the ''national interest'' in parliament becomes more difficult when voters demand attention to local and regional issues or when ethnic tensions erupt. In all these situations the landscape of ''home'' takes on a more elusive meaning.
Localism, Landscape, and the Ambiguities of Place is about the German nation state and the German-speaking lands beyond it, from the 1860s to the 1930s. The authors
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'[Blackbourn and Retallack] address the important question of how these various possible forms of collective identification could be combined in the minds of individuals ... [By focusing] the lens on the subnational level to trace ambiguous feelings of belonging over time ... the volume reminds us that questions of German identities became more, not less, complicated with the foundation of the Empire.' -- Christian M ller The Historical Journal: vol 53:03:10 'The contribution this volume makes to the field of cultural studies goes well beyond its German scope. Its greatest contribution - the whole being larger than the sum of the parts - lies in its testing and stretching of theories of place and identity. In the end, Localism, Landscape, and the Ambiguities of Place exposes some of the very assumptions that have gone into the notion of hybridity itself.' -- Peter Blickle German Quarterly
