bill schwarz - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by bill schwarz
Manchester University Press eBooks, Jul 30, 2018
After a prolonged courtship, on 10 September 1924 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Malcolm Nurse marri... more After a prolonged courtship, on 10 September 1924 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Malcolm Nurse married Julia Semper. It was a respectable social occasion. The groom was twenty-two (or thereabouts: there is some doubt about his date of birth), the son of a well-regarded elementary teacher, while his wife-to-be was the daughter of the highestranking black man in the service of the island's constabulary. The ceremony took place in an Anglican church, the bride in a lengthy train, the groom in tails. The reception was held in the police barracks on the edge of Port of Spain's Savannah. A few days later Nurse left Trinidad, and his pregnant wife, to travel to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he intended to study medicine. Two years on his wife (though not his baby daughter, whom he insisted be christened Blyden) joined him in the US. Gradually, Nurse was drawn into the Communist Party. He acquired a new identity which was to remain with him for the rest of his life: George Padmore. In late 1929 the party gave him two one-way tickets to Moscow. These were stolen, but Padmore scraped together enough cash to cover the cost of a single passage, and he set sail. So far as we can tell he never saw his wife again; was never to see his daughter; and he never returned to the Caribbean. This represents a particular variant on the theme of emigration which underwrites the story of twentieth-century Caribbean intellectuals. From 1929 to 1933 Padmore energetically devoted himself to the ideals of Soviet Communism, rising high in the firmament of the Communist administration; thereafter, until his death in 1959, his political passions were mobilised in the cause of Pan-Africanism. He was an intellectual formed deep in the vortex of the age of extremes, and for most of his life he espoused positions which others perceived to be both extreme and fanatical. His politics forced an abrupt separation from the modes of life which an aspiring colonial professional would have anticipated: his future experience of police barracks was to be [ 132 ]
The Churchill Myths, 2020
This chapter focuses on the way in which political actors of different stripes have used the idea... more This chapter focuses on the way in which political actors of different stripes have used the idea of Churchill as a means of self-validation. It explores how, in the decades after his death, Churchill became a key point of reference in Anglo-American relations, a theme which intensified after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The chapter also examines how Churchill has been used by those on both sides of the long-running debate about British membership of the European Union. Although Remainers invoked the memory of the 1946 ‘United States of Europe’ speech, they struggled to sell Churchill as a complex figure who was prepared to make concessions on British sovereignty in the interests of future peace. The ingrained, bulldog image remained hegemonic—even though Churchill’s popular reputation had shifted in subtle but significant ways since the end of the Second World War.
Europe after Empire is a pioneering comparative history of European decolonization from the forma... more Europe after Empire is a pioneering comparative history of European decolonization from the formal ending of empires to the postcolonial European present. Elizabeth Buettner charts the long-term development of post-war decolonization processes as well as the histories of inward and return migration from former empires which followed. She shows that not only were former colonies remade as a result of the path to decolonization: so too was Western Europe, with imperial traces scattered throughout popular and elite cultures, consumer goods, religious life, political formations, and ideological terrains. People were also inwardly mobile, including not simply Europeans returning 'home' but Asians, Africans, West Indians, and others who made their way to Europe to forge new lives. The result is a Europe fundamentally transformed by multicultural diversity and cultural hybridity and by the destabilization of assumptions about race, culture, and the meanings of place, and where impe...
History Workshop Journal, 2010
Type ‘workshop’ into any one of today’s online dictionaries, and you’ll find it combines two mean... more Type ‘workshop’ into any one of today’s online dictionaries, and you’ll find it combines two meanings: one refers to a space where manual or light industrial work is done, the other to the idea of a small-scale creative or educational event, usually involving the informal exchange of ideas between a small number of participants. As an expression of the aspirations of the founders of this journal in 1975, the word could hardly have been bettered; in that optimistic moment, the workshop idea seemed to fuse the virtues of honest toil, creative skill and mutual support, combining the ethics of artisanal production with the consciousness-raising politics of liberation. The editorial published in the first issue of History Workshop Journal (spring 1976) insisted that it would be a workshop in character as well as name: it would aim to reveal the workings of historical inquiry as much as the results, to encourage a collaborative approach to the conduct of research, to highlight the provisional nature of all historical writing, to encourage a healthy spirit of dialogue amongst readers, and above all to make the journal ‘a point of contact, a place where experiences are shared, projects encouraged, theoretical issues broached’. Needless to say, times have changed. But the commitment to widening the circle of historical production – of breaking down the barriers between historians, and of encouraging greater communication between different fields of historical practice – remains an important goal for HWJ today. For that reason we are delighted to announce a number of initiatives which we hope will renew this commitment to the pursuit of history as a shared project. The first is the establishment of a new HWJ Conference and Workshop Fund, devoted to the encouragement of all aspects of historical research and its dissemination. This fund will provide small-scale but essential support to events open to a range of participants, usually in the form of workshops and conferences. A variety of meeting formats (including virtual conferences) are eligible for support. Applications for up to £400 in support of necessary event costs (typically travel expenses or publicity costs) may be submitted to the HWJ administrator (historyworkshopjournal@gmail.com) at any time of year, normally no less than nine months prior to the event. A decision will usually be made within four months of receipt. Full details are provided on p. 4 of this issue.
James Baldwin Review, 2015
The escalation of systematic, if random, violence in the contemporary world frames the concerns o... more The escalation of systematic, if random, violence in the contemporary world frames the concerns of the article, which seeks to read Baldwin for the present. It works by a measure of indirection, arriving at Baldwin after a detour which introduces Chinua Achebe. The Baldwin-Achebe relationship is familiar fare. However, here I explore not the shared congruence between their first novels, but rather focus on their later works, in which the reflexes of terror lie close to the surface. I use Achebe's final novel, Anthills of the Savanah, as a way into Baldwin's "difficult" last book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, suggesting that both these works can speak directly to our own historical present. Both Baldwin and Achebe, I argue, chose to assume the role of witness to the evolving manifestations of catastrophe, which they came to believe enveloped the final years of their lives. In order to seek redemption they each determined to craft a prose-the product of a very particular historical conjuncture-which could bring out into the open the prevailing undercurrents of violence and terror.
The American Historical Review, 2009
Page 1. BROTHER'S KEEPER The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, 1... more Page 1. BROTHER'S KEEPER The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, 1937-1962 JASON C. PARKER Page 2. BROTHER'S KEEPER The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, 1937-1962 JASON C. PARKER Page 3. ...
Science as Culture, 1990
From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness, by Bernard Doray, London: Free Association Books, ... more From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness, by Bernard Doray, London: Free Association Books, 1988, 229 pages, hb £27.50, pb £11.95.
Race & Class, 1996
L'A. s'efforce de comprendre l'impact de l'effondrement de l'empire colonial ... more L'A. s'efforce de comprendre l'impact de l'effondrement de l'empire colonial sur la vie culturelle en Grande-Bretagne. Il montre que cette situation a amene une prise de conscience et a avive, dans ce pays, le sentiment d'appartenance a une « race blanche ». Il montre que la reduction de l'espace national, la concurrence economique internationale, l'americanisation de la societe anglaise, le developpement de l'immigration ont fortement encourage ce type d'attitude
The Modern Language Review, 2006
Journal of Historical Sociology, 1999
The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myt... more The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myths of providential England were powerful elements in twentieth-century British political life. Most of all, they powerfully informed Conservative conceptions of civilization, though they also exerted a wider political influence. The essay explores the invention of these myths in three pre-eminent writers: Burke, Macaulay, and Disraeli, and suggests that from their writings emerged a system of narration which came to be 'remembered' as the founding myth of the political nation-the conservative nation-in the twentieth century. By the time of mass democracy, the partisan divisions (between Whig and Tory) had been forgotten in favour of a wider cultural 'transformism,' which did much to cement the emerging coalition of landed and bourgeois politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the process, the very nature of politics itself came to be redefined.
Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 1986
History Workshop Journal, 2004
History Workshop Journal, 1992
History Workshop Journal, 1991
History Workshop Journal, 1981
History Workshop Journal, 2011
Journal of Historical Sociology, 1999
The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myt... more The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myths of providential England were powerful elements in twentieth-century British political life. Most of all, they powerfully informed Conservative conceptions of civilization, though they also exerted a wider political influence. The essay explores the invention of these myths in three pre-eminent writers: Burke, Macaulay, and Disraeli, and suggests that from their writings emerged a system of narration which came to be 'remembered' as the founding myth of the political nation-the conservative nation-in the twentieth century. By the time of mass democracy, the partisan divisions (between Whig and Tory) had been forgotten in favour of a wider cultural 'transformism,' which did much to cement the emerging coalition of landed and bourgeois politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the process, the very nature of politics itself came to be redefined.
Dialectical Anthropology, 1977
Cultural Studies, 1992
... consciousness often at its pivot, which Perry Anderson has in mind when he notes that 'In... more ... consciousness often at its pivot, which Perry Anderson has in mind when he notes that 'In post-Communist or post-colonial societies, the arrival of the modern typically triggers the archaic as compensation - the queues in Moscow lengthen for McDonalds and St Basil's alike' (P ...
Manchester University Press eBooks, Jul 30, 2018
After a prolonged courtship, on 10 September 1924 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Malcolm Nurse marri... more After a prolonged courtship, on 10 September 1924 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Malcolm Nurse married Julia Semper. It was a respectable social occasion. The groom was twenty-two (or thereabouts: there is some doubt about his date of birth), the son of a well-regarded elementary teacher, while his wife-to-be was the daughter of the highestranking black man in the service of the island's constabulary. The ceremony took place in an Anglican church, the bride in a lengthy train, the groom in tails. The reception was held in the police barracks on the edge of Port of Spain's Savannah. A few days later Nurse left Trinidad, and his pregnant wife, to travel to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he intended to study medicine. Two years on his wife (though not his baby daughter, whom he insisted be christened Blyden) joined him in the US. Gradually, Nurse was drawn into the Communist Party. He acquired a new identity which was to remain with him for the rest of his life: George Padmore. In late 1929 the party gave him two one-way tickets to Moscow. These were stolen, but Padmore scraped together enough cash to cover the cost of a single passage, and he set sail. So far as we can tell he never saw his wife again; was never to see his daughter; and he never returned to the Caribbean. This represents a particular variant on the theme of emigration which underwrites the story of twentieth-century Caribbean intellectuals. From 1929 to 1933 Padmore energetically devoted himself to the ideals of Soviet Communism, rising high in the firmament of the Communist administration; thereafter, until his death in 1959, his political passions were mobilised in the cause of Pan-Africanism. He was an intellectual formed deep in the vortex of the age of extremes, and for most of his life he espoused positions which others perceived to be both extreme and fanatical. His politics forced an abrupt separation from the modes of life which an aspiring colonial professional would have anticipated: his future experience of police barracks was to be [ 132 ]
The Churchill Myths, 2020
This chapter focuses on the way in which political actors of different stripes have used the idea... more This chapter focuses on the way in which political actors of different stripes have used the idea of Churchill as a means of self-validation. It explores how, in the decades after his death, Churchill became a key point of reference in Anglo-American relations, a theme which intensified after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The chapter also examines how Churchill has been used by those on both sides of the long-running debate about British membership of the European Union. Although Remainers invoked the memory of the 1946 ‘United States of Europe’ speech, they struggled to sell Churchill as a complex figure who was prepared to make concessions on British sovereignty in the interests of future peace. The ingrained, bulldog image remained hegemonic—even though Churchill’s popular reputation had shifted in subtle but significant ways since the end of the Second World War.
Europe after Empire is a pioneering comparative history of European decolonization from the forma... more Europe after Empire is a pioneering comparative history of European decolonization from the formal ending of empires to the postcolonial European present. Elizabeth Buettner charts the long-term development of post-war decolonization processes as well as the histories of inward and return migration from former empires which followed. She shows that not only were former colonies remade as a result of the path to decolonization: so too was Western Europe, with imperial traces scattered throughout popular and elite cultures, consumer goods, religious life, political formations, and ideological terrains. People were also inwardly mobile, including not simply Europeans returning 'home' but Asians, Africans, West Indians, and others who made their way to Europe to forge new lives. The result is a Europe fundamentally transformed by multicultural diversity and cultural hybridity and by the destabilization of assumptions about race, culture, and the meanings of place, and where impe...
History Workshop Journal, 2010
Type ‘workshop’ into any one of today’s online dictionaries, and you’ll find it combines two mean... more Type ‘workshop’ into any one of today’s online dictionaries, and you’ll find it combines two meanings: one refers to a space where manual or light industrial work is done, the other to the idea of a small-scale creative or educational event, usually involving the informal exchange of ideas between a small number of participants. As an expression of the aspirations of the founders of this journal in 1975, the word could hardly have been bettered; in that optimistic moment, the workshop idea seemed to fuse the virtues of honest toil, creative skill and mutual support, combining the ethics of artisanal production with the consciousness-raising politics of liberation. The editorial published in the first issue of History Workshop Journal (spring 1976) insisted that it would be a workshop in character as well as name: it would aim to reveal the workings of historical inquiry as much as the results, to encourage a collaborative approach to the conduct of research, to highlight the provisional nature of all historical writing, to encourage a healthy spirit of dialogue amongst readers, and above all to make the journal ‘a point of contact, a place where experiences are shared, projects encouraged, theoretical issues broached’. Needless to say, times have changed. But the commitment to widening the circle of historical production – of breaking down the barriers between historians, and of encouraging greater communication between different fields of historical practice – remains an important goal for HWJ today. For that reason we are delighted to announce a number of initiatives which we hope will renew this commitment to the pursuit of history as a shared project. The first is the establishment of a new HWJ Conference and Workshop Fund, devoted to the encouragement of all aspects of historical research and its dissemination. This fund will provide small-scale but essential support to events open to a range of participants, usually in the form of workshops and conferences. A variety of meeting formats (including virtual conferences) are eligible for support. Applications for up to £400 in support of necessary event costs (typically travel expenses or publicity costs) may be submitted to the HWJ administrator (historyworkshopjournal@gmail.com) at any time of year, normally no less than nine months prior to the event. A decision will usually be made within four months of receipt. Full details are provided on p. 4 of this issue.
James Baldwin Review, 2015
The escalation of systematic, if random, violence in the contemporary world frames the concerns o... more The escalation of systematic, if random, violence in the contemporary world frames the concerns of the article, which seeks to read Baldwin for the present. It works by a measure of indirection, arriving at Baldwin after a detour which introduces Chinua Achebe. The Baldwin-Achebe relationship is familiar fare. However, here I explore not the shared congruence between their first novels, but rather focus on their later works, in which the reflexes of terror lie close to the surface. I use Achebe's final novel, Anthills of the Savanah, as a way into Baldwin's "difficult" last book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, suggesting that both these works can speak directly to our own historical present. Both Baldwin and Achebe, I argue, chose to assume the role of witness to the evolving manifestations of catastrophe, which they came to believe enveloped the final years of their lives. In order to seek redemption they each determined to craft a prose-the product of a very particular historical conjuncture-which could bring out into the open the prevailing undercurrents of violence and terror.
The American Historical Review, 2009
Page 1. BROTHER'S KEEPER The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, 1... more Page 1. BROTHER'S KEEPER The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, 1937-1962 JASON C. PARKER Page 2. BROTHER'S KEEPER The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, 1937-1962 JASON C. PARKER Page 3. ...
Science as Culture, 1990
From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness, by Bernard Doray, London: Free Association Books, ... more From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness, by Bernard Doray, London: Free Association Books, 1988, 229 pages, hb £27.50, pb £11.95.
Race & Class, 1996
L'A. s'efforce de comprendre l'impact de l'effondrement de l'empire colonial ... more L'A. s'efforce de comprendre l'impact de l'effondrement de l'empire colonial sur la vie culturelle en Grande-Bretagne. Il montre que cette situation a amene une prise de conscience et a avive, dans ce pays, le sentiment d'appartenance a une « race blanche ». Il montre que la reduction de l'espace national, la concurrence economique internationale, l'americanisation de la societe anglaise, le developpement de l'immigration ont fortement encourage ce type d'attitude
The Modern Language Review, 2006
Journal of Historical Sociology, 1999
The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myt... more The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myths of providential England were powerful elements in twentieth-century British political life. Most of all, they powerfully informed Conservative conceptions of civilization, though they also exerted a wider political influence. The essay explores the invention of these myths in three pre-eminent writers: Burke, Macaulay, and Disraeli, and suggests that from their writings emerged a system of narration which came to be 'remembered' as the founding myth of the political nation-the conservative nation-in the twentieth century. By the time of mass democracy, the partisan divisions (between Whig and Tory) had been forgotten in favour of a wider cultural 'transformism,' which did much to cement the emerging coalition of landed and bourgeois politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the process, the very nature of politics itself came to be redefined.
Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 1986
History Workshop Journal, 2004
History Workshop Journal, 1992
History Workshop Journal, 1991
History Workshop Journal, 1981
History Workshop Journal, 2011
Journal of Historical Sociology, 1999
The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myt... more The argument here concerns the myths of the English, and of English history; it suggests that myths of providential England were powerful elements in twentieth-century British political life. Most of all, they powerfully informed Conservative conceptions of civilization, though they also exerted a wider political influence. The essay explores the invention of these myths in three pre-eminent writers: Burke, Macaulay, and Disraeli, and suggests that from their writings emerged a system of narration which came to be 'remembered' as the founding myth of the political nation-the conservative nation-in the twentieth century. By the time of mass democracy, the partisan divisions (between Whig and Tory) had been forgotten in favour of a wider cultural 'transformism,' which did much to cement the emerging coalition of landed and bourgeois politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the process, the very nature of politics itself came to be redefined.
Dialectical Anthropology, 1977
Cultural Studies, 1992
... consciousness often at its pivot, which Perry Anderson has in mind when he notes that 'In... more ... consciousness often at its pivot, which Perry Anderson has in mind when he notes that 'In post-Communist or post-colonial societies, the arrival of the modern typically triggers the archaic as compensation - the queues in Moscow lengthen for McDonalds and St Basil's alike' (P ...