In this acclaimed study of British statehood, identity and culture, Tom Nairn deftly dispels the conviction that the Royal Family is nothing more than an amusing relic of feudalism or a mere tourist attraction. Instead, he argues that the monarchy is both apex and essence of the British state, the symbol of a national backwardness. In this fully updated edition, Nairn’s powerful and bitterly comic prose lays bare Britain’s peculiar, pseudo-modern, national identity-which remains stubbornly fixated on the Crown and its constitutional framework, the ‚parliamentary sovereignty‘ of Westminster.
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Tom Nairn (1932-2023) was one of the UK“s most gifted left-wing thinkers and a towering radical imagination. His books included The Break-Up of Britain, The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy and The Left Against Europe?