Peter Coss
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199560004
- eISBN:
- 9780191723094
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560004.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
This introductory chapter begins by setting out the purpose of the book, which is to show how the English gentry was formed in an accelerating process from the latter half of the 13th century to the ...
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This introductory chapter begins by setting out the purpose of the book, which is to show how the English gentry was formed in an accelerating process from the latter half of the 13th century to the middle decades of the 14th. Emphasis is placed upon two analytically separated but interconnected phenomena: the development of a partnership in governance between the state and the lesser nobility on the one hand, and on the other the internal dynamics within the lesser nobility itself which led to the crystallization of a graded and relatively stable gentry. It then presents an overview of the various aspects of gentry life.Less
This introductory chapter begins by setting out the purpose of the book, which is to show how the English gentry was formed in an accelerating process from the latter half of the 13th century to the middle decades of the 14th. Emphasis is placed upon two analytically separated but interconnected phenomena: the development of a partnership in governance between the state and the lesser nobility on the one hand, and on the other the internal dynamics within the lesser nobility itself which led to the crystallization of a graded and relatively stable gentry. It then presents an overview of the various aspects of gentry life.
Peter Coss
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199560004
- eISBN:
- 9780191723094
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560004.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
This book examines the formative years of the English gentry. In doing so, it explains their lasting characteristics during a long history as a social elite, including adaptability to change and ...
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This book examines the formative years of the English gentry. In doing so, it explains their lasting characteristics during a long history as a social elite, including adaptability to change and openness to upward mobility from below, chiefly from the professions. Revolving around the rich archive left by the Multons of Frampton in South Lincolnshire, the book explores the material culture of the gentry, their concern with fashion, and their obsession with display. It pays close attention to the visitors to their homes, and to the social relationships between men and women. The book shows that the gentry household was a literate community, within a literate local world, and he studies closely the consumption of literature, paying particular attention to household entertainment. Beyond their households, the gentry could assert their pre-eminence in the local community through involvement with the Church and the management of their estates. Treating the relationship between gentry and Church in both devotional and institutional terms, the book shows how religious practice was a means for the gentry to assert social dominance, and they increasingly treated the Church as a career path for their kin. Protecting their estates was of similar importance, and legal expertise was highly prized — it consequently provided a major means of entry into the gentry, as well as offering further opportunities for younger sons. Overall, the book reveals that the cultural horizons of the gentry were essentially local. Nevertheless there were wider dimensions, and the book concludes with observations on how national and chivalric concerns interacted with the rhythms of regional life.Less
This book examines the formative years of the English gentry. In doing so, it explains their lasting characteristics during a long history as a social elite, including adaptability to change and openness to upward mobility from below, chiefly from the professions. Revolving around the rich archive left by the Multons of Frampton in South Lincolnshire, the book explores the material culture of the gentry, their concern with fashion, and their obsession with display. It pays close attention to the visitors to their homes, and to the social relationships between men and women. The book shows that the gentry household was a literate community, within a literate local world, and he studies closely the consumption of literature, paying particular attention to household entertainment. Beyond their households, the gentry could assert their pre-eminence in the local community through involvement with the Church and the management of their estates. Treating the relationship between gentry and Church in both devotional and institutional terms, the book shows how religious practice was a means for the gentry to assert social dominance, and they increasingly treated the Church as a career path for their kin. Protecting their estates was of similar importance, and legal expertise was highly prized — it consequently provided a major means of entry into the gentry, as well as offering further opportunities for younger sons. Overall, the book reveals that the cultural horizons of the gentry were essentially local. Nevertheless there were wider dimensions, and the book concludes with observations on how national and chivalric concerns interacted with the rhythms of regional life.
Stephen Porter
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199510146
- eISBN:
- 9780191700958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199510146.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
After a period of change and adaptation, the university's role in the post-reformation order had been established before the beginning of the 17th century. The nature of its responsibilities was ...
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After a period of change and adaptation, the university's role in the post-reformation order had been established before the beginning of the 17th century. The nature of its responsibilities was recognized in both government and ecclesiastical circles and in a much wider cross-section of society. Although there were those whose dealings with the university were primarily because its constituent colleges acted as landlords and impropriators, its greatest point of contact was, of course, through those who studied there. As one of the two universities in early modern England and Wales, Oxford had an important function in providing an education for many members of the social elite, the future administrators of church and state, the clergy, the bureaucracy, and the burgeoning professions. The numbers who gained this experience were not especially large, but nor were they restricted to one social group, for throughout the century Oxford drew its recruits from a broad spectrum of the community. Moreover, they came with varying intentions and prospects and this too considerably affected the character of the university.Less
After a period of change and adaptation, the university's role in the post-reformation order had been established before the beginning of the 17th century. The nature of its responsibilities was recognized in both government and ecclesiastical circles and in a much wider cross-section of society. Although there were those whose dealings with the university were primarily because its constituent colleges acted as landlords and impropriators, its greatest point of contact was, of course, through those who studied there. As one of the two universities in early modern England and Wales, Oxford had an important function in providing an education for many members of the social elite, the future administrators of church and state, the clergy, the bureaucracy, and the burgeoning professions. The numbers who gained this experience were not especially large, but nor were they restricted to one social group, for throughout the century Oxford drew its recruits from a broad spectrum of the community. Moreover, they came with varying intentions and prospects and this too considerably affected the character of the university.
Filippo De Vivo
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199227068
- eISBN:
- 9780191711114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227068.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter moves from government to the political arena around it. In the broglio's canvassing and squabbles, written and oral information were tools of political activity. The focus here is on ...
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This chapter moves from government to the political arena around it. In the broglio's canvassing and squabbles, written and oral information were tools of political activity. The focus here is on elites, defined not so much by census or birth as by proximity to governmental business: patricians, but also secretaries, foreign ambassadors, spies, and writers of avvisi. The chapter starts in the archive — a treasure less secure than many thought — and discusses the private appropriation of public documents by individuals such as Marin Sanudo, Giovan Vincenzo Pinelli, and Claudio Cornelio Frangipane. Leaking documents such as Venice's famous ambassadorial reports (relazioni) was itself an instrument of both power squabbles and commercial transactions, as illustrated by the case study of ambassador Ottaviano Bon's 1619 report disclosure. The chapter also offers a novel understanding of diplomacy and spying as information activities, and it discusses the mechanisms and reach of Venice's thriving manuscript newswriting.Less
This chapter moves from government to the political arena around it. In the broglio's canvassing and squabbles, written and oral information were tools of political activity. The focus here is on elites, defined not so much by census or birth as by proximity to governmental business: patricians, but also secretaries, foreign ambassadors, spies, and writers of avvisi. The chapter starts in the archive — a treasure less secure than many thought — and discusses the private appropriation of public documents by individuals such as Marin Sanudo, Giovan Vincenzo Pinelli, and Claudio Cornelio Frangipane. Leaking documents such as Venice's famous ambassadorial reports (relazioni) was itself an instrument of both power squabbles and commercial transactions, as illustrated by the case study of ambassador Ottaviano Bon's 1619 report disclosure. The chapter also offers a novel understanding of diplomacy and spying as information activities, and it discusses the mechanisms and reach of Venice's thriving manuscript newswriting.
W. D. Edmonds
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198227496
- eISBN:
- 9780191678714
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198227496.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Lyon's pre-revolutionary crisis had its links with the general crisis of the old regime, the instability of the French economy, restricted sumptuary expenditure at court, and sharp rises in the costs ...
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Lyon's pre-revolutionary crisis had its links with the general crisis of the old regime, the instability of the French economy, restricted sumptuary expenditure at court, and sharp rises in the costs of basic necessities after 1782. But the sharpness of the social conflicts which accompanied it, the extent and intensity of discontent amongst the labouring population, and the scale of economic dislocation all reflect the city's principal peculiarity: its dependence on a single industry in which the tensions between the controllers of capital and the work-force were unusually marked. While exceptional wealth, pre-eminent status, and local power were combined in the consular and magistratical élites, the propertied classes as a whole were fragmented and lacked unity of outlook.Less
Lyon's pre-revolutionary crisis had its links with the general crisis of the old regime, the instability of the French economy, restricted sumptuary expenditure at court, and sharp rises in the costs of basic necessities after 1782. But the sharpness of the social conflicts which accompanied it, the extent and intensity of discontent amongst the labouring population, and the scale of economic dislocation all reflect the city's principal peculiarity: its dependence on a single industry in which the tensions between the controllers of capital and the work-force were unusually marked. While exceptional wealth, pre-eminent status, and local power were combined in the consular and magistratical élites, the propertied classes as a whole were fragmented and lacked unity of outlook.
Ronald Hutton
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198203636
- eISBN:
- 9780191675911
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198203636.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter discusses the importance historians came to attach to what they called the ‘reformation of popular culture’ or the ‘reformation of manners’ in early modern Europe in the 1970s. This is ...
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This chapter discusses the importance historians came to attach to what they called the ‘reformation of popular culture’ or the ‘reformation of manners’ in early modern Europe in the 1970s. This is defined in two complementary ways, one being the growth of a more obvious distinction between the tastes and pastimes of social elites and those of the bulk of the population, and the increasing disparagement of the latter by the former. The second was a greater readiness by the wealthy to police the behaviour of their poorer neighbours and to prosecute practices which had formerly been regarded with a greater tolerance. All over western and central Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries reformers attacked popular festivity and tried to enforce a stricter standard of sexual mortality and of personal decorum.Less
This chapter discusses the importance historians came to attach to what they called the ‘reformation of popular culture’ or the ‘reformation of manners’ in early modern Europe in the 1970s. This is defined in two complementary ways, one being the growth of a more obvious distinction between the tastes and pastimes of social elites and those of the bulk of the population, and the increasing disparagement of the latter by the former. The second was a greater readiness by the wealthy to police the behaviour of their poorer neighbours and to prosecute practices which had formerly been regarded with a greater tolerance. All over western and central Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries reformers attacked popular festivity and tried to enforce a stricter standard of sexual mortality and of personal decorum.
Helen Jacobsen
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693757
- eISBN:
- 9780191731976
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693757.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Cultural History
By contrast with the other four men in these case studies, the earl of Strafford was never an arbiter of taste and was concerned only with following the latest fashions. Yet paradoxically it was by ...
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By contrast with the other four men in these case studies, the earl of Strafford was never an arbiter of taste and was concerned only with following the latest fashions. Yet paradoxically it was by emulating prevailing styles in personal and material display rather than by creating them that he looked to manage his identity as a successful diplomat, and his career demonstrates the increasing importance of the material world in diplomatic life. By 1700 a diplomat’s overseas residence had become an important locus of display, and not just his carriages, plate, and dress but also his furniture, pictures, and furnishings fulfilled a significant role in ambassadorial etiquette. Strafford patronized architects, cabinet-makers, silversmiths, artists, upholsterers, and decorative painters to ensure that his position as a senior minister was clearly evidenced by his material world – to both the English social elite and to his foreign diplomatic colleagues.Less
By contrast with the other four men in these case studies, the earl of Strafford was never an arbiter of taste and was concerned only with following the latest fashions. Yet paradoxically it was by emulating prevailing styles in personal and material display rather than by creating them that he looked to manage his identity as a successful diplomat, and his career demonstrates the increasing importance of the material world in diplomatic life. By 1700 a diplomat’s overseas residence had become an important locus of display, and not just his carriages, plate, and dress but also his furniture, pictures, and furnishings fulfilled a significant role in ambassadorial etiquette. Strafford patronized architects, cabinet-makers, silversmiths, artists, upholsterers, and decorative painters to ensure that his position as a senior minister was clearly evidenced by his material world – to both the English social elite and to his foreign diplomatic colleagues.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804774093
- eISBN:
- 9780804777872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804774093.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
The Lower Yangzi chambers of commerce represented the collective responses of social elites, especially guild leaders and other elite merchants, to domestic and foreign challenges. This chapter ...
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The Lower Yangzi chambers of commerce represented the collective responses of social elites, especially guild leaders and other elite merchants, to domestic and foreign challenges. This chapter discusses the growth of guilds and the elite merchant leadership; links of guilds and elite merchants beyond commercial and community bounds; and reactions of literati and elite merchants to Western chambers of commerce.Less
The Lower Yangzi chambers of commerce represented the collective responses of social elites, especially guild leaders and other elite merchants, to domestic and foreign challenges. This chapter discusses the growth of guilds and the elite merchant leadership; links of guilds and elite merchants beyond commercial and community bounds; and reactions of literati and elite merchants to Western chambers of commerce.
William Doyle
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198205364
- eISBN:
- 9780191676598
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205364.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
Two centuries after the Constitution of 1791 proclaimed its abolition, something close to venality of public offices continues to operate in crucial areas of French life. In one of those areas it ...
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Two centuries after the Constitution of 1791 proclaimed its abolition, something close to venality of public offices continues to operate in crucial areas of French life. In one of those areas it never really disappeared. Even the constituents, for whom devenalizing national institutions was an article of faith, thought new notaries should put up caution money. As they pocketed compensation for the loss of functions they still exercised, notaries continued quietly to sell their practices to the highest bidder. Only under the Fifth Republic was any dent been made in this seemingly impregnable edifice, and then only because it was relatively cost-free. Two functions of the venal system before 1789 were recruiting public servants and newcomers to social elites. Once the French Revolution was launched, the experience of venality under the old order helped to determine the way it went. The arguments against venality were ideas whose time had come, although the change in perceptions was not peculiar to France.Less
Two centuries after the Constitution of 1791 proclaimed its abolition, something close to venality of public offices continues to operate in crucial areas of French life. In one of those areas it never really disappeared. Even the constituents, for whom devenalizing national institutions was an article of faith, thought new notaries should put up caution money. As they pocketed compensation for the loss of functions they still exercised, notaries continued quietly to sell their practices to the highest bidder. Only under the Fifth Republic was any dent been made in this seemingly impregnable edifice, and then only because it was relatively cost-free. Two functions of the venal system before 1789 were recruiting public servants and newcomers to social elites. Once the French Revolution was launched, the experience of venality under the old order helped to determine the way it went. The arguments against venality were ideas whose time had come, although the change in perceptions was not peculiar to France.
Hiromi Monobe
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824832254
- eISBN:
- 9780824869267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824832254.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This essay presents how four different parties—local Issei leaders, Hawai‘i's white elites, Japanese diplomats, and social elites of Japan—became involved in a “campaign of education” (keihatsu undō) ...
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This essay presents how four different parties—local Issei leaders, Hawai‘i's white elites, Japanese diplomats, and social elites of Japan—became involved in a “campaign of education” (keihatsu undō) in Hawai‘i during the 1920s. Studies on Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i considered this campaign as part of the Americanization Movement that took place throughout the islands as well as in the continental United States. Conducted by white progressives, the Americanization Movement was a liberal political project intended to assimilate new immigrants into dominant Anglo-American culture. According to the theory, the vestiges of ethnic cultures were to disappear completely in the process of their metamorphosis from “foreigners” to full-fledged “Americans.”Less
This essay presents how four different parties—local Issei leaders, Hawai‘i's white elites, Japanese diplomats, and social elites of Japan—became involved in a “campaign of education” (keihatsu undō) in Hawai‘i during the 1920s. Studies on Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i considered this campaign as part of the Americanization Movement that took place throughout the islands as well as in the continental United States. Conducted by white progressives, the Americanization Movement was a liberal political project intended to assimilate new immigrants into dominant Anglo-American culture. According to the theory, the vestiges of ethnic cultures were to disappear completely in the process of their metamorphosis from “foreigners” to full-fledged “Americans.”
Geoffrey Evans and James Tilley
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198755753
- eISBN:
- 9780191816901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198755753.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
Chapter 6 documents three major changes in the main political parties, and especially Labour. First, party policy converged during the 1990s towards a more right-wing set of positions. The two main ...
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Chapter 6 documents three major changes in the main political parties, and especially Labour. First, party policy converged during the 1990s towards a more right-wing set of positions. The two main parties now cover a far less extensive ideological range. Second, in both manifestos and party speeches group appeals to voters changed. Labour, and to a lesser extent the Conservatives, regularly referred to the working class in both speeches and policy documents in the past, but they now display little or no recognition of the working class, or class per se. Both parties have adopted more class-neutral terminology referring to families. Third, politicians are now drawn from a similar pool of highly educated, upper middle class people. All of these changes have combined to transform perceptions of the parties. The chapter shows that people now see the main parties as more similar in terms of policy, elites, and which class they represent.Less
Chapter 6 documents three major changes in the main political parties, and especially Labour. First, party policy converged during the 1990s towards a more right-wing set of positions. The two main parties now cover a far less extensive ideological range. Second, in both manifestos and party speeches group appeals to voters changed. Labour, and to a lesser extent the Conservatives, regularly referred to the working class in both speeches and policy documents in the past, but they now display little or no recognition of the working class, or class per se. Both parties have adopted more class-neutral terminology referring to families. Third, politicians are now drawn from a similar pool of highly educated, upper middle class people. All of these changes have combined to transform perceptions of the parties. The chapter shows that people now see the main parties as more similar in terms of policy, elites, and which class they represent.
M.K. Raghavendra
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199450565
- eISBN:
- 9780199083091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199450565.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
‘Bollywood’ is a recent term to apply to mainstream Hindi cinema because, before the new millennium, it was even resisted. After it was first used outside India, ‘Bollywood’ has become a global ...
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‘Bollywood’ is a recent term to apply to mainstream Hindi cinema because, before the new millennium, it was even resisted. After it was first used outside India, ‘Bollywood’ has become a global brand. The chapter examines a film which made waves internationally, but which is essentially constructed as an advertisement for Bollywood and tries to speculate on what Bollywood has come to mean politically in relation to the Nation, and if Hindi cinema, rather than being ‘escapist fantasy’, is not promoting ‘simulacra’. The chapter also looks at a minor motif in the film, that of a traffic accident with a fatality and links it to the creation of a charmed circle of elite Indians, who stand outside the Nation’s laws. Bollywood appears to be staking a claim to belong within the circle.Less
‘Bollywood’ is a recent term to apply to mainstream Hindi cinema because, before the new millennium, it was even resisted. After it was first used outside India, ‘Bollywood’ has become a global brand. The chapter examines a film which made waves internationally, but which is essentially constructed as an advertisement for Bollywood and tries to speculate on what Bollywood has come to mean politically in relation to the Nation, and if Hindi cinema, rather than being ‘escapist fantasy’, is not promoting ‘simulacra’. The chapter also looks at a minor motif in the film, that of a traffic accident with a fatality and links it to the creation of a charmed circle of elite Indians, who stand outside the Nation’s laws. Bollywood appears to be staking a claim to belong within the circle.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310782
- eISBN:
- 9781846313141
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846313141.001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Frederick Douglass was the most prolific African American writer of the nineteenth century. After his escape from slavery in 1838, he entered on a public career that would cross the century and three ...
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Frederick Douglass was the most prolific African American writer of the nineteenth century. After his escape from slavery in 1838, he entered on a public career that would cross the century and three continents. Transnational encounters were central to Douglass's project of American self-fashioning, and it is his association with the world beyond the United States that is the focus of this book. His career presented a tactical synthesis of national and transnational concerns, including slavery, citizenship, manhood, and broader debates addressing the link of the individual with the nation state. This book specifically deals with Douglass's writing as it relates to premodern and non-western groups on the suburb of Ireland, Haiti, and Egypt, as well as his literary interactions with Garrisonian abolitionism and the British social elite. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in the book is given.Less
Frederick Douglass was the most prolific African American writer of the nineteenth century. After his escape from slavery in 1838, he entered on a public career that would cross the century and three continents. Transnational encounters were central to Douglass's project of American self-fashioning, and it is his association with the world beyond the United States that is the focus of this book. His career presented a tactical synthesis of national and transnational concerns, including slavery, citizenship, manhood, and broader debates addressing the link of the individual with the nation state. This book specifically deals with Douglass's writing as it relates to premodern and non-western groups on the suburb of Ireland, Haiti, and Egypt, as well as his literary interactions with Garrisonian abolitionism and the British social elite. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in the book is given.
Harvey Levenstein
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226473789
- eISBN:
- 9780226473802
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226473802.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
For much of the twentieth century, Americans had a love/hate relationship with France. While many admired its beauty, culture, refinement, and famed joie de vivre, others thought of it as a ...
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For much of the twentieth century, Americans had a love/hate relationship with France. While many admired its beauty, culture, refinement, and famed joie de vivre, others thought of it as a dilapidated country populated by foul-smelling, mean-spirited anti-Americans driven by a keen desire to part tourists from their money. This book explores how both images came to flourish in the United States, often in the minds of the same people. The book takes us back to the 1930s, when, despite the Great Depression, France continued to be the stomping ground of the social elite of the eastern seaboard. After World War II, wealthy and famous Americans returned to the country in droves, helping to revive its old image as a wellspring of sophisticated and sybaritic pleasures. At the same time, though, thanks in large part to Communist and Gaullist campaigns against U.S. power, a growing sensitivity to French anti-Americanism began to color tourists' experiences there, strengthening the negative images of the French that were already embedded in American culture. But as the century drew on, the traditional positive images were revived, as many Americans again developed an appreciation for France's cuisine, art, and urban and rustic charms. The book digs into personal correspondence, journalism, and popular culture to shape a story of one nation's relationship to another, giving vivid play to Americans' changing response to such things as France's reputation for sexual freedom, haute cuisine, high fashion, and racial tolerance.Less
For much of the twentieth century, Americans had a love/hate relationship with France. While many admired its beauty, culture, refinement, and famed joie de vivre, others thought of it as a dilapidated country populated by foul-smelling, mean-spirited anti-Americans driven by a keen desire to part tourists from their money. This book explores how both images came to flourish in the United States, often in the minds of the same people. The book takes us back to the 1930s, when, despite the Great Depression, France continued to be the stomping ground of the social elite of the eastern seaboard. After World War II, wealthy and famous Americans returned to the country in droves, helping to revive its old image as a wellspring of sophisticated and sybaritic pleasures. At the same time, though, thanks in large part to Communist and Gaullist campaigns against U.S. power, a growing sensitivity to French anti-Americanism began to color tourists' experiences there, strengthening the negative images of the French that were already embedded in American culture. But as the century drew on, the traditional positive images were revived, as many Americans again developed an appreciation for France's cuisine, art, and urban and rustic charms. The book digs into personal correspondence, journalism, and popular culture to shape a story of one nation's relationship to another, giving vivid play to Americans' changing response to such things as France's reputation for sexual freedom, haute cuisine, high fashion, and racial tolerance.
Jürg R. Schwyter
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198736738
- eISBN:
- 9780191800399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198736738.003.0002
- Subject:
- Linguistics, English Language
The early BBC was meant to entertain and to educate the masses, according to John Reith, its first managing director. This led, in 1926, to the establishment of the Advisory Committee on Spoken ...
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The early BBC was meant to entertain and to educate the masses, according to John Reith, its first managing director. This led, in 1926, to the establishment of the Advisory Committee on Spoken English, comprising members of Britain’s social elite (Robert Bridges, Logan Pearsall Smith, G. Bernard Shaw, Daniel Jones, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, and Arthur Lloyd James), with a remit, initially, of advising its broadcasters and, soon after, also the BBC’s audience on ‘correct’ pronunciation, principally via the Radio Times. The Committee established itself as the absolute authority for regulating a uniform pronunciation both for announcers and the audience. Eventually this led to a ‘listening BBC’, which nonetheless vetted and approved the language that was being transmitted; and to the publication of the widely successful booklet series Broadcast English. However, communicating a standard via the medium of radio cannot be successful, because changes in pronunciation require interaction with interlocutors.Less
The early BBC was meant to entertain and to educate the masses, according to John Reith, its first managing director. This led, in 1926, to the establishment of the Advisory Committee on Spoken English, comprising members of Britain’s social elite (Robert Bridges, Logan Pearsall Smith, G. Bernard Shaw, Daniel Jones, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, and Arthur Lloyd James), with a remit, initially, of advising its broadcasters and, soon after, also the BBC’s audience on ‘correct’ pronunciation, principally via the Radio Times. The Committee established itself as the absolute authority for regulating a uniform pronunciation both for announcers and the audience. Eventually this led to a ‘listening BBC’, which nonetheless vetted and approved the language that was being transmitted; and to the publication of the widely successful booklet series Broadcast English. However, communicating a standard via the medium of radio cannot be successful, because changes in pronunciation require interaction with interlocutors.
