Class, Culture, and the Agrarian Myth
Using examples from different historical contexts, this book examines the relationship between class, nationalism, modernity and the agrarian myth.

Essentializing rural identity, traditional culture and quotidian resistance, both aristocratic/plebeian and pastoral/Darwinian forms of agrarian myth discourse inform struggles waged 'from above' and 'from below', surfacing in peasant movements, film and travel writing. Film depictions of royalty, landowner and colonizer as disempowered, ordinary’ or well-disposed towards those below’, whose interests they share, underwrite populism and nationalism. Although these ideologies replaced the cosmopolitanism of the Grand Tour, twentieth century travel literature continued to reflect a fear of vanishing rural otherness’ abroad, combined with the arrival there of the mass tourist, the plebeian from home
1118918194
Class, Culture, and the Agrarian Myth
Using examples from different historical contexts, this book examines the relationship between class, nationalism, modernity and the agrarian myth.

Essentializing rural identity, traditional culture and quotidian resistance, both aristocratic/plebeian and pastoral/Darwinian forms of agrarian myth discourse inform struggles waged 'from above' and 'from below', surfacing in peasant movements, film and travel writing. Film depictions of royalty, landowner and colonizer as disempowered, ordinary’ or well-disposed towards those below’, whose interests they share, underwrite populism and nationalism. Although these ideologies replaced the cosmopolitanism of the Grand Tour, twentieth century travel literature continued to reflect a fear of vanishing rural otherness’ abroad, combined with the arrival there of the mass tourist, the plebeian from home
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Class, Culture, and the Agrarian Myth

Class, Culture, and the Agrarian Myth

by Tom Brass
Class, Culture, and the Agrarian Myth

Class, Culture, and the Agrarian Myth

by Tom Brass

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Overview

Using examples from different historical contexts, this book examines the relationship between class, nationalism, modernity and the agrarian myth.

Essentializing rural identity, traditional culture and quotidian resistance, both aristocratic/plebeian and pastoral/Darwinian forms of agrarian myth discourse inform struggles waged 'from above' and 'from below', surfacing in peasant movements, film and travel writing. Film depictions of royalty, landowner and colonizer as disempowered, ordinary’ or well-disposed towards those below’, whose interests they share, underwrite populism and nationalism. Although these ideologies replaced the cosmopolitanism of the Grand Tour, twentieth century travel literature continued to reflect a fear of vanishing rural otherness’ abroad, combined with the arrival there of the mass tourist, the plebeian from home

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781608464890
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Publication date: 03/01/2016
Series: Studies in Critical Social Sciences , #64
Pages: 447
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Tom Brass Ph.D Phil (1982) formerly lectured in the SPS Faculty at Cambridge Universityand directed studies for Queens' College. He edited The Journal of Peasant Studies for almost two decades, and has published extensively on agrarian issues and rural labour relations.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

List of Tables and Photographs xi

Introduction 1

Part 1 Culture, Tradition and Modernity

1 Cultural Struggle 'From Below' 23

2 Cultural Struggle 'From Above' 66

3 Development Caught between Tradition and Modernity 117

Part 2 Screen Images of Rural Struggle

4 Horror, Humour, Fiends and Fools 161

5 Best of Friends, or Worst of Enemies? 203

Part 3 Culture, Class Struggle and Travel

6 The Grand Tour, or from Cosmopolitanism to Nationalism 247

7 Mass Tourism, or the Mob-in-the-Streets Travels Abroad 292

8 Venice-Being There 344

Conclusion 386

Bibliography 395

Subject Index 429

Author Index 441

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