Published
May 24, 2023Page count
252 pagesISBN
978-1529227680Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
May 24, 2023Page count
252 pagesISBN
978-1529227666Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
May 24, 2023Page count
252 pagesISBN
978-1529227697Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
May 24, 2023Page count
252 pagesISBN
978-1529227697Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
The Battle for Britain
This book addresses the social, political and economic turbulence in which the UK is embroiled. Drawing on Cultural Studies, it explores proliferating crises and conflicts, from the multiplying varieties of social dissent through the stagnation of rentier capitalism to the looming climate catastrophe.
Examining arguments about Brexit, class and ‘race’, and the changing character of the state, the book is underpinned by a transnational and relational conception of the UK. It traces the entangled dynamics of time and space that have shaped the current conjuncture.
Questioning whether increasingly anti-democratic and authoritarian strategies can provide a resolution to these troubles, it explores how the accumulating crises and conflicts have produced a deepening ‘crisis of authority’ that forms the terrain of the Battle for Britain.
“A rich and readable book on what’s been happening in British politics for the last decade, which thinks through the specificity and complexity of the relations of theory and politics.” Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“A worthy successor to Policing the Crisis, The Battle for Britain provides powerful new understandings of the interconnected crises embroiling post-Brexit Britain, and creative political alternatives.” Gill Hart, UC Berkeley
“Demonstrating the difference that conceptual nuance and historical specificity make in reading present crises, this important book outlines past contested conjunctural formations that continue to haunt and hamstring our beliefs and practices today. Clarke insightfully critiques simplistic explanations of how we got here – and of who ‘we’ even are in the first place.” John L. Jackson, Jr., author of Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity
“With wonderful virtuosity, Clarke untangles the complex political–cultural dynamics that have shaped the multiple crises that confront the UK-in-the-world. A masterclass in conjunctural analysis!” Fiona Williams, University of Leeds
“Brilliantly shows how conjunctural analysis can make sense of contemporary British politics. A wonderfully accomplished work.” Davina Cooper, King's College London
“John Clarke has done it again. With wit, verve and intellectual rigour, he provides a highly original account of Brexit and the wider cultural and political battles reshaping the UK. Masterfully using conjunctural analysis to shine new light on current crises, conflicts and complexities, The Battle for Britain makes essential reading for scholars and activists who are working to counter reactionary politics and for those committed to thinking politics otherwise.” Jeff Maskovsky, City University of New York
John Clarke is Professor Emeritus at The Open University and a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow. His research and writing have explored the contemporary transformations of nation, state and welfare.
Introduction: The Battle for Britain and Conjunctural Thinking
1. Nations, Nationalisms and the Conjuncture
2. Turbulent Times: The Making of the Present
Pause for Thought 1
3. Accounting for Brexit
4. Thinking Relationally: Class and Its Others
5. Building Blocs: Towards a Politics of Articulation
Pause for Thought 2
6. An Accumulation of Crises
7. ‘The Best Country in the World’: Race, Culture, History
8. Holding It Together? The Coercive Turn and the Crises of Party and Bloc
9. Unstable Equilibria: The Life of the State
10. The Battle for Britain – and Beyond
