2021 1月，英国脱离欧盟，踏上了新的征程。脱离了帝国和现在的欧盟，英国的经济和以往一样是全国性的。在全球化似乎不可避免的十年左右的时间里，这是一个显著的逆转。这是怎么发生的？
仅英国一人就认为，这种“国有化”——将国家边界与其国民保持一致——源自2008年的全球金融危机。这本书分析了紧缩和匮乏是如何加剧的，并在谁得到什么的问题上产生了新的冲突。这延伸到了关于英国民族的目标、代表谁、价值观的斗争。
这本书借鉴了一系列文化、经济和政治主题——移民和敌对环境、怀旧和第二次世界大战神话、种族和“留守者”、为照顾者鼓掌和休假，以及超级标杆和单口喜剧——追溯了英国在坠机后走上的复杂民族主义道路，证明了我们不能在不考虑经济的情况下解释民族主义，反之亦然。
在分析通过脱欧将崩溃和紧缩的后果与封锁政治形态联系在一起的线索时，仅英国就提供了英国过去十年及其与全球经济关系的精辟而原始的历史。
Britain Alone: How a Decade of Conflict Remade the Nation
When Britain left the European Union in January 2021, it set out on a new journey. Shorn of empire and now the EU too, Britain’s economy is as national as it has ever been. A decade or so since globalisation seemed inevitable, this is a remarkable reversal. How did this happen?
Britain alone argues that this “nationalisation” ― aligning the boundaries of the state with its national peoples ― emerged from the 2008 global financial crisis. The book analyses how austerity and scarcity intensified and created new conflicts over who gets what. This extends to struggle over what the British nation is for, who it represents, and who it values.
Drawing on a range of cultural, economic, and political themes ― immigration and the hostile environment, nostalgia and Second World War mythology, race and the “left behind”, the clap for carers and furloughing, as well as Superscrimpers and stand-up comedy ― the book traces the complex nationalist path Britain took after the crash, demonstrating how we cannot explain nationalism without reference to the economy, and vice versa.
In analysing the thread that ties the fallout of the crash and austerity, through Brexit, and to the shape of lockdown politics, Britain alone provides an incisive and original history of the last decade of Britain and its relationship to the global economy.
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