Nation and Commemoration
Nation and Commemoration
Looking for an examination copy?
This title is not currently available for examination. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
What do people think when they imagine themselves as part of a nation? Nation and Commemoration answers this question in an exploration of the creation and recreation of national identities through commemorative activities. Extending recent work in cultural sociology and history, Lyn Spillman compares centennial and bicentennial celebrations in the United States and Australia to show how national identities can emerge from processes of 'cultural production'. She systematically analyses the symbols and meanings of national identity in these two 'new nations', identifying changes and continuities, similarities and differences in how visions of history, place in the world, politics, land, and diversity have been used to express nationhood. The result is a deeper understanding, not only of American and Australian national identities, but also of the global process of nation-formation.
- Only full comparative study of Australian and American national celebrations available
- Offers historical, cultural and global perspectives on nationalism, more usually studied in its contemporary guise
- Combines public and political with more personal, cultural elements in peoples' understanding of who they are in nation terms
Reviews & endorsements
"This book adds to our understanding by drawing on the historical experiences of `settler' countries." "...Spillman offers us an understanding of differences and similarities in Australian and U.S. national identities, and of national identity formation in general." Connie L. McNeely, Social Forces
" Nation and Commemoration is a towering achievement...because it makes sense of massive amounts of information about national identity and collective memory without simplistically reducing it...to the manipulative imagination of cultural elites. Spillman's book will be a standard reference. No other book documents so thoroughly and so persuasively the process by which nations come to know themselves." Barry Schwartz, American Jrnl of Sociology
"Nation and commemoration provides a detailed, comparative analysis of national identity as revealed by national celebrations in two countries." International Affairs
"Nation and Commemoration makes an important contribution to the literature on national identity, through a study of the centennial and bicentennial celebrations in Australia and United States." Journal of Australian Studies
"...Spillman has...written a lively, clear and engaging book that is obviously well researched." Australian Journal of Political Science
"This is a rich book, and one from which a great variety of readers will find something to add to their own thinking about Australian and American nationalism." Journal of Intercultural Studies
"Apart from finding the book interesting and well contructed, any scholar working in this area, or related areas, will particularly value the bibliographic material." Sociology
Product details
January 1997Paperback
9780521574327
268 pages
228 × 153 × 15 mm
0.367kg
1 table
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Comparing national identities
- 2. 'Every-one admits that commemorations have their uses': producing national identities in celebration
- 3. 'Our country by the world received': centennial celebrations in 1876 and 1888
- 4. 'To remind ourselves that we are a united nation': bicentennial celebrations in 1976 and 1988
- 5. Making nations meaningful in the United States and Australia.
