Three previous Brexits, each of which had a different cause and a different outcome, are analysed and contrasted to the current Brexit, begging the question "what happens next?"

Three previous Brexits, each of which had a different cause and a different outcome, are analysed and contrasted to the current Brexit, begging the question "what happens next?"

Rather than being limited to political or legal discussion (like most books on Brexit), this book explores the relationship between cultural production and Brexit (both in the lead up to it; and in its aftermath). It is the first major study to take a comparative approach to analysing the relationship between cultural production and Brexit in all 4 nations of the UK. This comparative approach is necessary to get a detailed picture of the complex dynamics at work across each. This book is highly interdisciplinary in nature, looking at the rise of the cultural industries; the relationship between the UK City of Culture festival and its fore-runner, the European Capital of Culture; national book prizes in Britain and Europe; British variations on Nordic Noir TV; and the Brexit novel. As a result, it draws on research in the disciplines of geography, economics, film and television studies, history and politics as well as publishing and literary studies.

This timely and powerful autoethnography traces the spread of and responses to Covid-19: from the uncertainty surrounding its outbreak, to its devastating and continued aftermath. Following the virus in real time, it explores the fears, risks and responses to the global pandemic, and how it has shaped our everyday lives against the backdrop of social and political upheaval, and the looming climate crisis. Social theorist and moral philosopher, Victor Jeleniewski Seidler, discusses fundamental questions of inequality and injustice regarding race, class and gender brought to the fore by the visibility of varying risk levels, vulnerabilities and protections provided by legislative measures against the virus. This interdisciplinary analysis scrutinises values, ethics, responsibilities and uncertain futures formed by the global health crisis, and evaluates media and communications strategies, government responses and political communications at domestic and international levels. Seidler shares critical insights into the cultural history of pandemics, highlighting lessons to be learned from anticipating, preparing for and enduring moments of crisis. Perceiving how the pandemic and climate emergency are interwoven, the book concludes with an urgent call to rebuild sustainable economic, political and ecological imaginations. This wide-reaching volume will appeal to a broad academic readership in environmental studies, sociology, philosophy, health studies, cultural studies, gender studies, media and communication.

The world is becoming more complex, fraught with increasing possibilities for conflict over national rivalries, economic competition, and cultural and ideological fault lines. This clear-eyed text offers a structured and theoretically grounded way to think about the forces that animate change and the alternative futures they may create. Donald Kelley views both contemporary reality and the future we face through the perspective of four different paradigms that shape our way of thinking about the world: The nation-state paradigm, built on the assumption that the traditional Westphalian nation-state remains the key building block of the present and the future, which leads us to predict the future in terms of the nature and alignment of nation-states The economic paradigm, built on the assumption that economic factors are increasingly important, which leads us to see the future in terms of factors such as interdependence, globalization, and trade as well as the growing opposition to these developments and the prioritization of national economic needs The identity and culture paradigm, built on the distinct identities and cultures of nations and regions, which leads us to view the future in terms of conflicting culture-based communities transcending formal national or economic interests The ideology paradigm, based on a post-cold war reemergence of ideological conflict within and among nations, which leads us to view a world based on ideology-based conflict From these paradigms and their interactions, Kelley builds a series of possible alternative futures of the international system. His framework provides a unique way of looking at how and why the world is changing and the many different “futures”—some peaceful and productive, some warlike and destructive, and others simply dysfunctional—in which we might live.

What does Brexit do to our sense of history? On the basis that you cannot map the future if you have no sense of the past, Cambridge professor of international history and best-selling author of The Long Shadow, sets out his profound, multi-cultural interpretation of the many Island Stories that make up Britain's history. On 23 June 2016 the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. The margin was narrow (4%) yet decisive. Out meant out but nobody in the governing class had a clue where the country was actually going: there was no exit strategy. The country's future seemed more uncertain than at any time since 1940. And not just its future; also its past. How should we tell the story of British history in the light of Brexit? For a half-century until now the direction, if not the pace, had seemed clear. Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared in 1962 that Britain had lost an empire but not yet found a role. Over the next decade British leaders, Tory and Labour, tried to find a new role within Europe; eventually Britain joined the EEC in 1973. But in 2019 that European role and identity - always a strain for the British - seems to be played out. 'Becoming European' is no longer a plausible historical narrative for the nation. The Brexit vote forces us to think again about 'our island story'. Having 'lost' their future, the Brexit British have also lost their past. At this time of profound change, political and international history really matter. This new book by Professor David Reynolds borrows from the title of the Whiggish classic Our Island Story but is, instead, about 'stories', plural - about the different ways in which to see our complicated past. The four main chapters look at four alternative ways of narrating 'our island story' in the wake of Brexit. And, in doing so, they draw on some of the narratives that have been offered - by voices from the past such as Joseph Chamberlain, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher and by figures from the current Brexit debate including Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. It is a classic of its kind by one of the great professional historians of modern times and offers readers clear questions by which to navigate Britain's present.

In the wake of Brexit, Ian Morris chronicles the ten-thousand-year history of Britain's relationship to Europe as it has changed in the context of a globalizing world. When Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the 48 percent who wanted to stay and the 52 percent who wanted to go each accused the other of stupidity, fraud, and treason. In reality, the Brexit debate merely reran a script written ten thousand years earlier, when the rising seas physically separated the British Isles from the European continent. Ever since, geography has been destiny—yet it is humans who get to decide what that destiny means. Ian Morris, the critically acclaimed author of Why the West Rules—for Now, describes how technology and organization have steadily enlarged Britain’s arena, and how its people have tried to turn this to their advantage. For the first seventy-five hundred years, the British were never more than bit players at the western edge of a European stage, struggling to find a role among bigger, richer, and more sophisticated continental rivals. By 1500 CE, however, new kinds of ships and governments had turned the European stage into an Atlantic one; with the English Channel now functioning as a barrier, England transformed the British Isles into a United Kingdom that created a worldwide empire. Since 1900, thanks to rapid globalization, Britain has been overshadowed by American, European, and—increasingly—Chinese actors. In trying to find its place in a global economy, Britain has been looking in all the wrong places. The ten-thousand-year story bracingly chronicled by Geography Is Destiny shows that the great question for the current century is not what to do about Brussels; it’s what to do about Beijing.