Description
Book SynopsisIn a 1968 speech on British immigration policy, Enoch Powell insisted that although a black man may be a British citizen, he can never be an Englishman. This book explains why such a claim was possible to advance and impossible to defend. It reveals how 'Englishness' emerged against the institutions and experiences of the British Empire.
Trade ReviewHonorable Mention for the 2000 First Book Prize of the Modern Language Association "Out of Place is an impressive volume, ambitious in its scope, sophisticated in its argument, and elegant in its execution."--Ranu Samantrai, MLR: Modern Language Review
Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Locating English Identity3Ch. 1The House of Memory: John Ruskin and the Architecture of Englishness41Ch. 2"British to the Backbone": On Imperial Subject-Fashioning75Ch. 3The Path from War to Friendship: E.M. Forster's Mutiny Pilgrimage101Ch. 4Put a Little English on It: C.L.R. James and England's Field of Play135Ch. 5Among the Ruins: Topographies of Postimperial Melancholy164Ch. 6The Riot of Englishness: Migrancy, Nomadism, and the Redemption of the Nation190Afterword: Something Rich and Strange219Notes225Index245
