"This is an intellectually rigorous collection of essays investigating the nature of "Englishness" both within and beyond national borders… [It] offers a useful and timely intervention into analyses of the continuing significance of empire in understanding English/British identity and culture… the relationship of history to present circumstances, and the co-option of the "past" for political objectives, is a key theme… while several of its essays are grounded in the field of literature and contemporary culture, historians should not be tempted to overlook this important collection." · English Historical Review"The coherence of the volume derives from – and it is, in some respects a remarkably coherent volume – an introduction that anticipates, indeed, proves the theoretical coordinates through which the individual essays form their analyses." · College Literature"This excellent collection of essays addresses with great range and significant insight urgent questions that have long haunted and are again animating the relation of Englishness to Britishness, of nationalism to imperialism, of local cultural grammars to global political forms. In collecting the essays for the volume and in their own contributions to and introduction of it, the editors have done a superb job of reminding readers why the many paradoxes of "Englishness" are vital not only to the long history of the formal British empire but to the moment of flexible imperialism we currently inhabit. This is a timely and striking addition to the field." · Ian Baucom, Duke University.
