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Nationalism From Above In Narratives : A Comparison Between Britian And China, Zhaojin Lu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Comparing political speeches and history textbooks in Britain and China from the twentieth century, this study explores the symbolic construction of Chinese and British national identity after the downfall of the empires. In both cases, the decline of the empire and the imperial identity had given the room for the uprising of narrow nationalism, which could be seen respectively in English-centric narratives and Han-centric narratives in the data before and during the World War Two. However, a key difference lay in the building of English nationalism and Han nationalism. The grow of English nationalism was accompanied by a shrinkage of …