Children of the Earth Literature, Politics, and Nationhood |
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| Author:
| Shell, Marc |
| ISBN: | 978-0-19-506864-1 |
| Publication Date: | Jun 1993 |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press, Incorporated
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | AUD $42.95 |
Book Description:
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Children of the Earth provides a powerful reassessment of the ways in which we have defined ourselves--in terms of race, nationality, blood relations, and the Family of Humankind--by exploring the dangers and contradictions inherent in them all. Marc Shell ranges far and wide through Western culture to call into question many of our basic assumptions. By breaking down the most basic concept of group identity (the family), Shell opens a detailed reexamination of the emergence of social...
More DescriptionChildren of the Earth provides a powerful reassessment of the ways in which we have defined ourselves--in terms of race, nationality, blood relations, and the Family of Humankind--by exploring the dangers and contradictions inherent in them all. Marc Shell ranges far and wide through Western culture to call into question many of our basic assumptions. By breaking down the most basic concept of group identity (the family), Shell opens a detailed reexamination of the emergence of social and political ideologies in Western culture. He analyzes a number of texts from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries--from Hamlet to Pudd'nhead Wilson--to illuminate the powerful interplay of kinship, race, religion, and national identity throughout Western history. And by drawing startling connections between seemingly unrelated elements of ideology, history, and literature, Children of the Earth forever alters the way we think about who we are.