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Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears Reprint Edition
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Far from being a persistent element in the "national character", the notion of the British stiff upper lip was in fact the product of a relatively brief and militaristic period of the nation's past, from about 1870 to 1945. In earlier times we were a nation of proficient, sometimes virtuosic moral weepers. To illustrate this perhaps surprising fact, Thomas Dixon charts six centuries of weeping Britons, and theories about them, from the medieval mystic Margery Kempe in the early fifteenth century, to Paul Gascoigne's famous tears in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup. In between, the book includes the tears of some of the most influential figures in British history, from Oliver Cromwell to Margaret Thatcher (not forgetting George III, Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin, and Winston Churchill along the way).
But the history of weeping in Britain is not simply one of famous tear-stained individuals. These tearful micro-histories all contribute to a bigger picture of changing emotional ideas and styles over the centuries, touching on many other fascinating areas of our history. For instance, the book also investigates the histories of painting, literature, theatre, music and the cinema to discover how and why people have been moved to tears by the arts, from the sentimental paintings and novels of the eighteenth century and the romantic music of the nineteenth, to Hollywood weepies, expressionist art, and pop music in the twentieth century.
Weeping Britannia is simultaneously a museum of tears and a philosophical handbook, using history to shed new light on the changing nature of Britishness over time, as well as the ever-shifting ways in which Britons express and understand their emotional lives. The story that emerges is one in which a previously rich religious and cultural history of producing and interpreting tears was almost completely erased by the rise of a stoical and repressed British empire in the late nineteenth century. Those forgotten philosophies of tears and feeling can now be rediscovered. In the process, readers might perhaps come to view their own tears in a different light, as something more than mere emotional incontinence.
- ISBN-109780199676064
- ISBN-13978-0199676064
- EditionReprint
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication dateJuly 25, 2017
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions8.48 x 0.94 x 5.47 inches
- Print length456 pages
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Product details
- ASIN : 0199676062
- Publisher : Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (July 25, 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 456 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780199676064
- ISBN-13 : 978-0199676064
- Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.48 x 0.94 x 5.47 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #7,367,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12,225 in European History (Books)
- #43,528 in Great Britain History (Books)
- #64,039 in Historical Study (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Thomas Dixon is Honorary Professor of History at Queen Mary University of London, where he was the founding Director of the Centre for the History of the Emotions in 2008. He is a leading expert on all aspects of the history of emotions and has written books about passions, emotions, love, altruism, tears, and weeping.
His books include From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category (2003), The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain (2008), and Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (2015), as well his definitive guide - The History of Emotions: A Very Short Introduction (2023).
His broadcast work has included histories of friendship and of solitude for BBC Radio 4, and an award-winning podcast series, “The Sound of Anger”, made as part of a Wellcome Trust research project on emotional health. His most recent podcast series is called "Living With Feeling" (2022).
In 2023 Thomas left his post in academia to pursue a new career as a schoolteacher.
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- TaniaReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars He loved
Bought it as a Christmas present. He loved it
- bmiReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 14, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Great fun and very enlightening
Wonderful in terms of the content and the production values of the actual book. Definitely a book worth buying for friends and relatives over the Christmas period.
The author takes us back 600 years in search of the lachrymose Britons starting off with Margarey Kempe some 700 years ago.
I really enjoy the way Thomas Dixon writes. Hugely engaging and with a real wit. Interestingly in terms of the blurb on the back you have recommendations from Ian Hislop and Jo Brand. Thinking about it he almost could be their love child .............
As a lay reader this is a very entertaining read and imagine that as there are 86 pages of foot notes and further resources it is of value as well as enjoyment for academics.
Highly recommended
- Mr. K. P. RogersReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 21, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating read, unexpectedly so
I thought this book was going to trot out the well-trodden cliche about Brits never crying and that really they all do. It's not really that. It's about how there have been occasions were weeping has occurred, and often the author then finds heart-rending nobility in it.
This is a book that's not asking for us to show such emotions more often. Rather, it just highlights where they these emotions and reactions have been seen over then last 600 years, or thereabouts.
I enjoyed reading it: it's a readable book, not at all academic in style – the OUP is the publisher.
The lovely thing about it is that it's a subject that is probably unique to the book. I'll certainly think a lot more about weeping in public and how this affects people around them.
- Scottish dog loverReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 13, 2015
4.0 out of 5 stars Who knew?
I always thought that we Brits were stoic, firm jawed and resolute. Not so, we used to cry, blub and wail frequently. That surprised me.
So did this book. Is it possible to keep a reader enthralled over crying? Yes. This book is entertaining, sometimes sad, more often amusing.
It has to be said that this work is not a purely scholarly tome. Instead the author creates a lively narrative.
There are illustrations which add to the text and are great to look at.
So if you would like an entertaining read on a curiously British subject then this book could be for you.
It brings a tear to the readers eye.
- Charles VaseyReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars If You Have Tears Prepare To Shed Them Now
A history of crying forsooth! As history moves from the spectacular it visits the quotidian, and does so with great effect. The author has a catholic view of his topic drawing evidence from (for example) chronicle, popular entertainment and novels. He also enjoys wordplay (so be prepared folks). Laying out copious examples he identifies the movement from weeping to the dry eye and out again. Along the way we see numerous reasons for weeping, some of which are deemed acceptable by convention and others that are not, and of course the convention itself moves. This taxonomy of blubbing is useful in itself to those (like me) of a grim disposition. We encounter the usual suspects: Margaret Thatcher and the reaction to the death of Princess Diana, but we also visit areas I had forgotten such as Bobbie Stokoe crying after the 1973 Cup victory. Indeed one thing the book does remind me of is how soon we do forget: the occasions of Thatcher Tears being much more numerous than I, or her critics, remembered.
A wide-ranging book that offers much.