The Centenary Edition Raymond Williams
Who Speaks for Wales? Nation, Culture, Identity
Second Edition, The Centenary Edition
9781786837066
Distributed for University of Wales Press
The Centenary Edition Raymond Williams
Who Speaks for Wales? Nation, Culture, Identity
Second Edition, The Centenary Edition
In the words of Cornel West, Raymond Williams was "the last of the great European male revolutionary socialist intellectuals." A figure of international importance in the fields of cultural criticism and social theory, Williams was also preoccupied throughout his life with the meaning and significance of his Welsh identity. Who Speaks for Wales? was the first collection of Raymond Williams’s writings on Welsh culture, literature, history, and politics. Published in 2003, it appeared in the early years of Welsh political devolution and offered a historical and theoretical basis for thinking across the divisions of nationalism and socialism in Welsh thought. This new edition, appearing in the centenary of Williams’ birth, appears at a very different moment in which, after the Brexit referendum of 2016, Raymond Williams’s "Welsh-European" vision seems to have been soundly rejected and is now a reminder of what might have been. This new edition includes new material and a new afterword. Williams’s engagement with questions of nationhood and identity contained in this book spoke to readers from Berlin to New York, Sao Paulo to Tokyo. Daniel G. Williams’s new edition further underlines the ways in which Raymond Williams’ engagement with Welsh issues makes a significant contribution to contemporary international debates on nationalism, class, and ethnicity. Who Speaks for Wales? remains essential reading for everyone interested in questions of nationhood and identity in Britain and beyond.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Return of the Native ix xv
CULTURE
1. Who Speaks for Wales?
3
2. Welsh Culture 5
3. The Arts in Wales 12
4. Wales and England 16
5. Community 27
6. West of Offa’s Dyke 34
HISTORY
1. The Social Significance of 1926 39
2. Boyhood 45
3. On Gwyn A. Williams: Three Reviews 62
The Black Domain
Putting the Welsh in their Place The Shadow of the Dragon
4. Remaking Welsh History 69
5. Black Mountains 73
LITERATURE
1. Marxism, Poetry, Wales 81
2. The Welsh Industrial Novel 95
3. The Welsh Trilogy and The Volunteers 112
4. Freedom and a Lack of Confidence 143
5. Working-Class, Proletarian, Socialist: Problems in Some
Welsh Novels 147
6. All Things Betray Thee 159
7. People of the Black Mountains 165
POLITICS
1. The Importance of Community 177
2. Are We Becoming More Divided? 186
3. The Culture of Nations 191
4. Decentralism and the Politics of Place 204
5. The Practice of Possibility 212
Notes on the Texts 221
Index 239
Introduction: The Return of the Native ix xv
CULTURE
1. Who Speaks for Wales?
3
2. Welsh Culture 5
3. The Arts in Wales 12
4. Wales and England 16
5. Community 27
6. West of Offa’s Dyke 34
HISTORY
1. The Social Significance of 1926 39
2. Boyhood 45
3. On Gwyn A. Williams: Three Reviews 62
The Black Domain
Putting the Welsh in their Place The Shadow of the Dragon
4. Remaking Welsh History 69
5. Black Mountains 73
LITERATURE
1. Marxism, Poetry, Wales 81
2. The Welsh Industrial Novel 95
3. The Welsh Trilogy and The Volunteers 112
4. Freedom and a Lack of Confidence 143
5. Working-Class, Proletarian, Socialist: Problems in Some
Welsh Novels 147
6. All Things Betray Thee 159
7. People of the Black Mountains 165
POLITICS
1. The Importance of Community 177
2. Are We Becoming More Divided? 186
3. The Culture of Nations 191
4. Decentralism and the Politics of Place 204
5. The Practice of Possibility 212
Notes on the Texts 221
Index 239
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