The Break-Up of Britain

The classic text, with a new introduction by Anthony Barnett

In this classic text, first published in 1977, Tom Nairn memorably depicts the “slow foundering” of the United Kingdom on the rocks of constitutional anachronism, its fall from empire and the gathering force of civic nationalism. Rich in comparisons between the nationalisms of the British Isles and those of the wider world, The Break-Up of Britain concludes by reflecting on the Janus-faced nature of national identity. Postscripts from the Thatcher and New Labour years trace the political strategies whose upshot accelerated the demise of a British order they were intended to serve.

As a second Scottish independence referendum beckons, a new introduction by openDemocracy’s Anthony Barnett underlines the book’s enduring relevance.“The most forceful and original mind to confront, demask and anatomise the British state.”
—Neal Ascherson, London Review of Books

“A luminous guide to the morbidities unleashed by the relentless machinery of post-imperial decline.”
—Paul Gilroy

“Tom Nairn pioneered critical retrospect of the United Kingdom, and scandalised people by looking forward calmly to its disintegration.”
—Perry Anderson

“A creative intellectual toolkit for a political emergency, assisting Scots, Welsh and English democrats alike to finally break the chains of Westminster.”
—Hilary Wainwright

“Densely and brilliantly argued … original and perceptive.”
—Economist

“Burning-glass of a mind … disconcerting in its withering contempt not only for the British state but for everything associated with it.”
—Guardian

“Vitriolic wit … The method is resolutely materialist.”
—Time Out

“The intellectual godfather of modern Scottish nationalism.”
—Herald

“Powerful and prophetic. Nairn is perhaps Britain’s most perceptive and ambitious national storyteller, an audaciously creative stylist. “
—Rory Scothorne, New Statesman

“Combines often stunning writing with immense knowledge of literature, history, and political philosophy … Nairn has made a priceless contribution towards a desperately needed new discourse.”
—The Hindu

“The most significant book on British politics of the past half-century.”
—Anthony Barnett, openDemocracy

“A great writer, thinker, intellectual and good man. His books and scholarship will long be remembered.”
—Gordon Brown

“Tom Nairn’s international reach has been huge but his scholarship was vital in providing the intellectual base which turned Scottish nationalism from a romantic notion to a powerful left-wing challenge to the British state.”
—Alex Salmond

“One of the greatest thinkers, political theorists and intellectuals that Scotland has ever produced—and certainly one of the leading and most respected voices of civic nationalism.”
—Nicola Sturgeon

“A titan of the independence movement.”
—Herald

“Nairn was instrumental in shaping the movement for Scottish independence as well as the academic study of nationalism in all its forms. Charting the paralysis and decline of the British economy and constitution, The Break-Up of Britain amounted to a damning obituary of the post-imperialist state, predicting the emergence of a resurgent Scottish power in some form or another.”
—The Times

“Nairn played a decisive role in introducing Gramsci’s thought to the English-speaking world. In his magnum opus, The Break-Up of Britain, he argued that Scottish neo-nationalism emerged not from the Celtic bloodstream, but from the foundering of the British state.”
—Jonathan Derbyshire, Financial Times

“Nairn’s work [was] a set of elegantly constellated ideas, spanning almost every British political and cultural phenomenon one can think of, each radiating its own heat and light but combining together into something spectacular. “
—Rory Scothorne, New StatesmanTom Nairn (1932–2023) was one of the UK’s most gifted left-wing thinkers and a towering radical imagination. His books included The Break-Up of Britain, The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy and The Left Against Europe?