A ‘Small Free Trade Oasis’?: agriculture,tariff policy,and the Danish example in Great Britain and Ireland,c. 1885–1911

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Denmark was an important overseas example in the United Kingdom's intertwined debates over free trade and agricultural modernization. Both countries remained open to foreign agricultural imports even as many other European states protected their farmers. But whilst British and Irish agriculture struggled, Denmark became a hugely successful exporter of dairy and pork. This achievement of rural prosperity under a liberal trade regime had obvious relevance to the future of agriculture in Britain, and particularly Ireland. Agricultural reformers in the two islands used the Danish example to show that technical education and co-operative production would allow farmers to profit even under free trade, whilst for British Liberals, ideologically committed to free trade, Denmark demonstrated that imported foodstuffs were actually a prerequisite for a flourishing rural economy. Several prominent Danish free traders personally intervened in the early 20th-century debate over tariff reform to affirm these very points. However, British and Irish protectionists contested the ‘free trade’ character of Denmark's fiscal policy. The article situates the Danish comparison within a broader Anglo-Scandinavian transnationalism, in which the themes of modernity and liberalism reside to the fore.     

Cultural Landscapes of Britain

'Britain' and 'cultural landscape' as used here are defined. The World Heritage categorisation provides the basis for a brief review of the range of such landscapes in Britain, with specific examples being named and briefly characterised. Relict landscapes are particularly noted. 'Threats to cultural landscapes are identified as of both development and decrepitude. A short discussion of the purpose and viability of cultural landscapes in Britain, for national and global purposes, concludes by noting a number of British cultural landscapes recognisable in World Heritage terms and potentially relevant to the European Landscape Convention 2000.     

Culture and nature in the mediterranean: towards an integrated approach

Tate Britain’s 2011 poster campaign boldly states ‘This is Britain’ and reproduces two works from the collection, one historic, one modern or contemporary, with a strip of Union Jack flag at the bottom. The design suggests a sense of coherence in the collection and in British art in general. This article questions the purpose of this supposed coherence, by questioning its art historical basis, and focusing on its consequences for the reception and perception of historic, modern and contemporary British art amongst Tate’s audience, both within and without the gallery space. The ideas presented draw on press commentary, visitor statistics and museum advertising practice and look at three points in Tate’s history: the Millbank gallery’s 1897 opening, the 2000 rebrand as Tate Britain and the current moment of this poster campaign. This article will argue that the transhistorical juxtapositions seen in these posters are a central tenet of how Tate builds its own identity and that of British art, and that these posters are used as a satellite exhibition space, but with a curatorial approach other to that of the gallery itself, so that the collection is displayed to attract the maximum potential audience.     

Managing global heritage in the face of future climate change: the importance of understanding geological and geomorphological processes and hazards

It is now widely acknowledged that human adaptation of the planet is causing significant changes to the global climate, which are being felt currently and are likely to increase in the future. This is beginning to place exceptional strains on the historic environment, here defined as both above and below ground archaeological remains. Using examples from the cultural list of World Heritage Sites in mainland Britain, this paper explores how knowledge of past and contemporary geological and geomorphological processes can provide an understanding of natural hazards and risk assessment. This, in turn, can inform management strategies to allow the protection and stabilisation of sites, limit further degradation and ensure long-term sustainability. From the analysis of published documentation available from UNESCO, it appears that natural processes have not always received the attention they deserve, and in some cases appear to have been ignored. Given the complexity of future climate change and the role that natural processes will play in determining the vulnerability of individual heritage assets, it is essential that geoscientists, archaeologists and cultural heritage managers work together to develop appropriate strategies to mitigate the effects of change in the future, especially since many of the themes developed in this paper have generic applicability across a range of landscape environments.     

‘The land and its people’: reflections on artistic identification in an age of nations and nationalism

From the late eighteenth century onwards, increasing numbers of visual artists came to identify with their nations and with the homeland and its people. This development was strongly influenced by growing national cultural support and regulation of the arts by academies, art schools, museums and art markets in Western Europe. On a subjective level, the Rousseauan movement of a ‘return to Nature’, Herder's espousal of vernacular cultural self‐expression and, above all, the widespread Romantic cult of authenticity, were potent influences on the inner self‐identification of visual artists after 1800, and were manifested in the novel importance accorded to landscape and rural genre painting in Western Europe. Here I consider the role of national sentiment, the ‘return to Nature’ and the cult of authenticity, first in landscape paintings by Paul Sandby, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable in early nineteenth‐century Britain, and then in the rural genre paintings of Jean‐Francois Millet and Jules Breton in nineteenth‐century France and Josef Israels, Anton Mauve and Vincent Van Gogh in the later nineteenth‐century Netherlands. Their work reveals how nineteenth‐century visual artists became inwardly identified with the ‘land and its people’, and how they in turn contributed, especially through prints and engravings, to the dissemination of national imagery and a cultural nationalism.     

Modernization, welfare and 'third way' politics: limits to theorizing in 'thirds'?

The current period of welfare reform in British politics is taking place within a discourse of modernization described in terms of a 'third way'. The ideas which constitute this discourse resonate with recent developments within human geography, namely a movement to theorizing 'in-between' spaces, a turn to culture and to issues of globalization. This paper suggests that welfare reform is a restructuring project which allows the nature of thinking and acting 'in thirds' to be questioned. It problematizes the 'third way' approach to cultural modernization and economic globalization as a de-politicized discourse, and argues for the cultural politics and political economics which underpin welfare reform to be foregrounded. As a form of political discourse analysis, it points to the developing need for a welfare geography that is attuned to the languages and practices through which dominant systems of social and economic distribution are constituted.     

Tourism consumption and the imagination of money

This paper supplements exisiting research on tourism consumption through a focus on money. It draws upon recent work in the geography of money and economic sociology, arguing that the understandings of money used by consumers are of importance to the social formation of tourism. Using a theoretical framework that links consumption studies and reconceptualizations of money, the paper develops a qualitative case study of British long-haul travellers. It concludes that consumers' understandings of money are integral to the ways in which tourists seek to engage with destinations, and points out some implications for the politics of tourism.     

3. THE NOSTALGIAS FOR EMPIRE

The aim of this article is to explore the theoretical and practical differences between colonial and imperial nostalgia. It opens with a substantial theoretical discussion of the relevant scholarship followed by an analysis of the nostalgias of empire. Nostalgia, in relation to empire, is usually analyzed as a longing for a period of former imperial and colonial glory, thus blurring the various hegemonic practices associated with empire. This elision arises out of the fact colonialism was integral to European imperialism. Yet there is a significant distinction between imperial and colonial nostalgia. With its main focus on postcolonial society in France and Britain, the article will theorize the differences between them, arguing that one is connected to the loss of global power and the other to the loss of a socioeconomic lifestyle. It will explore the way in which these two types of nostalgia are constructed and historicized, examining their differences from historical memory through the responses of both former colonizing and colonized individuals or groups. It will demonstrate that collective nostalgia is not merely a “feel‐good” sentiment about an idealized political or socioeconomic past, but can be readily connected to coming to terms with past trauma(s) thus being a mechanism to elide violence experienced and violence perpetrated by highlighting one to the detriment of the other.     

‘Playing Cold War politics’: the cold war in Anglo-Kenyan relations in the 1960s

Kenya has rarely been considered a major Cold War battleground, becoming linked with Britain and the Western side, even whilst being publicly committed to non-alignment and African Socialism. Nonetheless, the Cold War offered opportunities for Kenya’s newly independent leaders. It was utilised in factional political debates between Tom Mboya and Oginga Odinga. In the late 1960s, leading Kenyans around President Jomo Kenyatta used Cold War rhetoric and rivalries to bargain to their advantage with the British over arms sales. British policy-makers offered concessions as they worked to build and then maintain their position as Kenya’s closest foreign partner.     

Getting Out of Belize: Britain’s Intractable Military Exit from Central America

With scant material interests at stake, and protection exacting a toll on military resources, Britain wanted out of Belize, its sole dependency in Central America. This desire became more pronounced by the 1970s as successive British governments sought to eliminate residual out-of-Europe political and military commitments. Exiting Belize, however, proved a three-decade challenge for Britain. Exploiting recently declassified British government documents, this article explains why leaving proved so intractable. The article explains how Guatemala’s territorial claim—and its threat to realise this claim by means of force—proved the main obstacle to Britain’s military exit. Repeated attempts in the 1970s towards a negotiated settlement with Guatemala failed. Instead the decade was marked by moments of acute tension. Unable to discount the possibility of a Guatemalan attack, Britain felt compelled to reinforce its military presence in the country at a time when it was trying to exit. Moreover, Britain had to offer continued protection as a necessary condition for Belize to proceed to independence in 1981. This post-independence defence guarantee was intended as a short-term measure, and Britain remained committed to ending its Belize commitment at the earliest opportunity. Yet British protection ended only in 1994. This article unpacks the political and military factors that best account for this protracted withdrawal.