Nicholas Allen – författare

In all the complex cultural history of the islands of Britain and Ireland the idea of the coast as a significant representative space is critical. For many important artists coastal space has figured as a site from which to braid ideas of empire, nation, region, and archipelago. They have been drawn to the coast as a zone of geographical uncertainty in which the self-definitions of the nation founder; they have been drawn to it as a peripheral space of vestigial wildness, of island retreats and experimental living; as a network of diverse localities richly endowed with distinctive forms of cultural heritage; and as a dynamically interconnected ecosystem, which is at the same time the historic site of significant developments in fieldwork and natural science. This collection situates these cultures of the Atlantic edge in a series of essays that create new contexts for coastal study in literary history and criticism. The contributors frame their research in response to emerging conversations in archipelagic criticism, the blue humanities, and island studies, the essays challenging the reader to reconsider ideas of margin, periphery and exchange. These twelve case studies establish the coast as a crucial location in the imaginative history of Britain, Ireland and the north Atlantic edge. Coastal Works will appeal to readers of literature and history with an interest in the sea, the environment, and the archipelago from the 18th century to the present. Accessible, innovative and provocative, Coastal Works establishes the important role that the coast plays in our cultural imaginary and suggests a range of methodologies to represent relationships between land, sea, and cultural work.

The island of Ireland is home to one of the world's great literary and artistic traditions. This book reads Irish literature and art in context of the island's coastal and maritime cultures, beginning with the late imperial experiences of Jack and William Butler Yeats and ending with the contemporary work of Anne Enright and Sinead Morrissey. It includes chapters on key historical texts such as Erskine Childers's The Riddle of the Sands, and on contemporary writers including Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Kevin Barry. It sets a diverse range of writing and visual art in a fluid panorama of liquid associations that connect Irish literature to an archipelago of other times and places. Situated within contemporary conversations about the blue and the environmental humanities, this book builds on the upsurge of interest in seas and coasts in literary studies, presenting James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, John Banville, and many others in new coastal and maritime contexts. In doing so, it creates a literary and visual narrative of Irish coastal cultures across a seaboard that extends to a planetary configuration of imagined islands.

Late Heaney follows Seamus Heaney through the landscapes, friendships and events that shaped his last four collections, The Spirit Level, Electric Light, District and Circle, and Human Chain, all set in conversation with his work at large. Heaney's later life was a time of transformative change and achievement. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, after which he became a writer of global standing. This book grounds that experience in the history and geography of the places he wrote about, with an eye to the artists who influenced him and the people he knew. Late Heaney draws a line from the waterlands of Lough Neagh to the olive groves of Greece, inviting the reader to think about time and belonging in context of art and memory. Later, Heaney began to imagine himself as a witness at the riverbank between life and death, an image that features powerfully in his final poems. Late Heaney follows the poet there, finding light in the dark, and company among the shades.

The first two decades of Irish independence were fraught and the formation of the post-imperial state was a continual controversy. The conditional perception of what Ireland was, should, or might be coincided with a revolution in the arts. Now forgotten cultures flared and disappeared, little magazines, cabaret clubs, riots and theatres erupting in a fluctuating public sphere. Nicholas Allen reads the crisis of Irish independence as formative of newly experimental relations between novels, poems, paintings, artists and audiences. The conditional, unfinished spaces of the modernist artwork were an unfinished civil war. In connecting these texts and times, Allen locates Joyce, Beckett, Jack and W. B. Yeats in the controversies surrounding the Irish state after 1922. With its interdisciplinary perspective on artists and contexts, this book is a major contribution to the study of Irish culture of the 1920s and 30s and of modernism's histories.

Public perceptions of political ethics are at the heart of current political debate. Drawing on original data, this book is the first general account of popular understandings of political ethics in contemporary British politics. It offers new insights into how citizens understand political ethics and integrity and how they form judgments of their leaders. By locating these insights against the backdrop of contemporary British political ethics, the book shows how current institutional preoccupations with standards of conduct all too often miss the mark. While the use of official resources is the primary focus of much regulation, politicians' consistency, frankness and sincerity, which citizens tend to see in terms of right and wrong, are treated as 'normal politics'. The authors suggest that new approaches may need to be adopted if public confidence in politicians' integrity is to be restored.

Public perceptions of political ethics are at the heart of current political debate. Drawing on original data, this book is the first general account of popular understandings of political ethics in contemporary British politics. It offers new insights into how citizens understand political ethics and integrity and how they form judgments of their leaders. By locating these insights against the backdrop of contemporary British political ethics, the book shows how current institutional preoccupations with standards of conduct all too often miss the mark. While the use of official resources is the primary focus of much regulation, politicians' consistency, frankness and sincerity, which citizens tend to see in terms of right and wrong, are treated as 'normal politics'. The authors suggest that new approaches may need to be adopted if public confidence in politicians' integrity is to be restored.

'The Britain at the Polls series always asks—and answers, often with new insights—the key questions about British general elections. And few elections in living memory pose as many big questions as that of May 2010.' - Martin Kettle, The Guardian

'For decades Britain at the Polls has given us high quality insights into British elections. This latest edition is the most significant and intriguing of all: an excellent cast of contributors provide a vivid and accessible presentation of evidence with an engaging clarity of writing and depth of analysis. It should prove invaluable not only for academics, but students, journalists and anyone who wants to understand a unique, game-changing election.' - Geoffrey Evans, Nuffield College, Oxford

'Britain at the Polls 2010 is an essential guide to a highly unusual election. The authors provide detailed coverage of the major developments within and between the parties, the issues that shaped the election and—perhaps most importantly—some long-term trends in public opinion that might explain New Labour's slow but steady decline since the late 1990s. Detailed, yet highly accessible, this book should be read by anyone interested in the what, when and why of this remarkable event in British politics.' - Kai Arzheimer, Professor of Empirical Political Science, University of Mainz

'This is an outstanding collection of papers by an outstanding cast of authors. It tells the story of the remarkable election of 2010 to be sure, but it also makes general patterns in British politics much more understandable. I heartily endorse it.' - Christopher Wlezien, Professor of Political Science, Temple University, Philadelphia

'This volume is a worthy contribution to a long-running and valuable series of post-election analyses. It provides insights which are of immediate interest, and in coming years it will be a useful reference for those who want to recall 'what really happened' in the important election of 2010. - Susan Scarrow, University of Houston

The latest book in the long-running Britain at the Polls series provides an indispensible and incisive review of the extraordinary 2010 UK general election. Leading experts chart the path from Tony Blair's reelection in 2005 to the collapse of the Labour vote and the formation of the first coalition government since 1945. Topics covered include Gordon Brown's premiership, David Cameron's leadership of a resurgent Conservative party, the effects of the financial crisis and the parliamentary expenses scandal, and the drama of the UK's first ever televised leaders' debates. The book analyses the impact of these factors and others on the election and looks ahead to assess how the coalition government-and British politics-will adapt in the new political and economic environment.