We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
English and French national identity: comparisons and contrasts.
- Authors
KUMAR, KRISHAN
- Abstract
The English and the French are both former imperial peoples, and to that extent they share certain features of national identity common to peoples who have had empires. That includes a ‘missionary’ sense of themselves, a feeling that they have, or have had, a purpose in the world wider than the concerns of non-imperial nations. I argue that nevertheless the English and the French have diverged substantially in their self-conceptions. This I put down to a differing experience of empire, the sense especially among the French that the British were more successful in their imperial ventures. I also argue that contrasting domestic histories – evolutionary in the English case, revolutionary in that of the French – have also significantly coloured national identities in the two countries. These factors taken together, I argue, have produced a more intense sense of nationhood and a stronger national consciousness among the French than among the English.
- Subjects
FRANCE; ENGLAND; NATIONAL character; CROSS-cultural differences; HISTORY of imperialism; NATIONALISM
- Publication
Nations & Nationalism, 2006, Vol 12, Issue 3, p413
- ISSN
1354-5078
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1469-8129.2006.00247.x