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‘The Cliffs are not Cliffs’: The Cliffs of D over and National Identities in B ritain, c .1750– c .1950
Author(s) -
Readman Paul
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.12
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1468-229X
pISSN - 0018-2648
DOI - 10.1111/1468-229x.12054
Subject(s) - homeland , optimal distinctiveness theory , national identity , national identities , history , empire , period (music) , ethnology , value (mathematics) , white (mutation) , identity (music) , genealogy , sociology , archaeology , aesthetics , political science , art , law , psychology , social psychology , biochemistry , chemistry , politics , gene , machine learning , computer science
This article examines the relationship between landscape and B ritish national identities by means of a case study of the white cliffs of D over in K ent, E ngland. The cliffs were important symbols of island‐nationhood across the modern period, and demonstrate that even in the age of empire B ritish as well as E nglish national identities could be conceptualized in distinctly insular ways. In particular, the cliffs were seen to be associated with the national homeland, its heritage and historical continuity over hundreds of years, as well as with national defence and a defiant self‐asserted separateness from the rest of E urope. The article has implications for the (still relatively neglected) role played by specific landscapes in the construction of national identities, not just in B ritain but generally. In functioning as markers of national difference the physical distinctiveness of these landscapes was important, but their associational value mattered more.