Christianity, patriotism, and nationhood

About this book

"This book links the concepts of patriotism, Christianity, and nationhood in the journalistic writings of G.K. Chesterton and emphasizes their roots within the English attachments that were central to his political and spiritual persona. It further connects Chesterton to the vibrant debate about English national identity in the early years of the twentieth century, which was instrumental in shaping not only his political convictions, but also his religious convictions. Christianity, Patriotism and Nationhood explores his changing conception of the English people from an early, menacing account of their revolutionary potential in the face of plutocracy to the more complex portraits he drew of their character on recognizing their political passivity after the First World War." "Christianity, Patriotism and Nationhood emphasizes that Chesterton upheld a cultural rather than racial conception of national homogeneity, in keeping with the Victorian sources of his thought and the popular patriotism of Edwardian England. It argues that his anti-semitism was ancillary, rather than integral to his understanding of England, and that it was matched by a similar conception of the antithesis between Islam and the patriotic ideal. Stapleton relates his abiding concern for national "authenticity" to global imperialism, enhanced international co-ordination of states and civil society after 1918, and the increasing role of the British state in defining the nation. This book will be valuable to intellectual and political historians of early-twentieth-century England, as well as to scholars and students of English national identity in the twenty-first century."--Jacket.