Our Shadowed Present : Modernism, Postmodernism and History

by J.C.D. Clark

At a time of resurgent popular interest in history, Jonathan Clark's new book is a landmark defense of traditional values. He argues that our sense of tradition and community, and even our morality, is being destroyed. In a series of original and incisive chapters on, among other things, Anglo-American relations, the decline of the United Kingdom as a entity, and the absence of English nationalism, Clark argues for an alternative to an apparently liberal attitude to morality and politics and a dedication to the present, based instead upon a clear recognition of the value of the past. An important and timely book in which a distinguished historian attacks—vigorously, brilliantly, and elegantly—Britain's loss of tradition.

Genres: History

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Jonathan Charles Douglas Clark is the Joyce C. and Elizabeth Ann Hall Distinguished Professorship of British History Emeritus at the University of Kansas. He received his undergraduate degree at Downing College, Cambridge and prior to his move to Kansas in 1996 he taught at Peterhouse, Cambridge and All Souls College, Oxford.