{"product_id":"island-stories-isbn-9781859841907","title":"Island Stories","description":"A luminous sequel to the highly acclaimed first volume of \u003ci\u003eTheatres of Memory,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eIsland Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is an engrossing journey of discovery into the multiple meanings of national myths, their anchorage in daily life and their common sense of a people’s destiny. Raphael Samuel reveals the palimpsest of British national histories, offering a searching yet affectionate account of the heroes and villains, legends and foibles, cherished by the “four nations” that inhabit the British Isles. Samuel is interested by the fact that traditions can disappear no less abruptly than they were invented. How is it, he asks, that the Scots have lost interest in a British narrative of which they were once a central protagonist? Why is the celebration of “Britons” thriving today just as its object has become problematic? \u003ci\u003eIsland Stories\u003c\/i\u003e marvelously conveys the mutability of national conceits. Samuel calls as witness a galaxy of authorities—Bede and Gerald of Barri, Macaulay and Stubbs, Shakespeare and Dickens, Lord Reith and Raymond Williams, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Benn—each of whom sought to renew the sense of national identity by means of an acute sense of the past.\u003ci\u003e Island Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is a luminous study of the way nations use their past to lend meaning to the present and future. This sequel to the widely acclaimed \u003ci\u003eTheatres of Memory\u003c\/i\u003e is as passionate, unexpected and enjoyable as its predecessor.“The sheer scope and erudition of these pages is stunning ... an imaginative tour de force.”—Terry Eagleton, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Provocative, original ... a powerful testimony to the unending dialogue between the present and the past that is the essence and excitement of history.”—David Cannadine, \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A stunning collection ... humane, optimistic, multi-textured, ever-meandering but always sparkling ... One of the finest and—paradoxically—most quintessentially English historians of our time.”—Ben Pimlott, \u003ci\u003eIndependent on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A magnificent and irreplaceable collection.”—John Gray, \u003ci\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A provocative lens into both the remote and the near British past.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Deeply researched, intelligently argued, lovingly presented, thoroughly excitable and immensely stimulating ... [Samuel is] as comfortable with seventeenth-century sectarians as with Victorian nonconformists, as familiar with the townlands of Ireland as the streets of London.”—John Gillis, \u003ci\u003eLeft History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A rich fund of subversive ideas.”—Daniel Johnson, \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eRaphael Samuel\u003c\/b\u003e (1934–1996) was a tutor in History at Ruskin College, Oxford, and a founding editor of \u003ci\u003eHistory Workshop Journal.\u003c\/i\u003e His works include \u003ci\u003eTheatres of Memory\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eIsland Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, also from Verso. For more information about his work, see The Raphael Samuel History Centre and Archive online.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGareth Stedman Jones \u003c\/b\u003e is a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge University and in 2010 become Professor of the History of Ideas at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eAn End to Poverty?\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLanguages of Class: Studies in Working-Class History 1832–1982\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303853150437,"sku":"NP9781859841907","price":44.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781859841907.jpg?v=1767730217","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/island-stories-isbn-9781859841907","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}