Gordon Brown: Bard of Britishness

by Tom Nairn, Leighton Andrews (Contributor), David Melding (Contributor)

What does the future hold for Britain and the relationships between England, Scotland and Wales? Tom Nairn discusses these issues, with contributions from others from across the political spectrum.

92 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2006

About the author

Tom Nairn was a Scottish political theorist of nationalism. He was an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University.

Nairn attended Dunfermline High School and Edinburgh College of Art before graduating from the University of Edinburgh with an MA in Philosophy in 1956. During the 1960s, he taught at various institutions including the University of Birmingham (1965-6), coming to prominence in the occupation of Hornsey College of Art (1967–70), after which he was dismissed. He worked at the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam from 1972–76, and then as a journalist and TV researcher (mainly for Channel 4 and Scottish Television) before a year at the Central European University with Ernest Gellner (1994–95) and then setting up and running a Masters course on Nationalism at University of Edinburgh (1995-1999). In 2001 he was invited to take up an Innovation Professorship in Nationalism and Cultural Diversity at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, leaving in January 2010. Returning to the UK, he became a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Durham University in 2009.