Anglosphere
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The word Anglosphere describes a concept of a group of anglophone (English-speaking) nations which share historical, political, and cultural characteristics rooted in or attributed to the historical experience of the United Kingdom. Its definition varies with the different authors who have put it forward.
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[edit] Definitions
According to a post on Word Spy, a blog on unusual words, the term was first used by novelist Neal Stephenson in 1995. Stephenson did not use the term in any specific geopolitical sense but rather to describe a fictional race called the Atlantans who, when immigrating to London, were drawn from across the English speaking world. The blog defines the term as meaning "The collection of English-speaking nations that support the principles of common law and civil rights."[1]
Other, more specific meanings of the term have been fleshed out by others. The American businessman James C. Bennett, a proponent of the idea that there is something special about the cultural and legal traditions of English speaking nations, writes on his blog "Albion's Seedlings" that "the Anglosphere is not a club that a person or nation can join or be excluded from."[2] Bennett also writes on "The Anglosphere Institute," another website he runs to promote the notion of an Anglosphere, that "geographically, the densest nodes of the Anglosphere are found in the United States and the United Kingdom, while Anglophone regions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and South Africa are powerful and populous outliers. The educated English-speaking populations of the Caribbean, Oceania, Africa and India pertain to the Anglosphere to various degrees.[3] Bennett says the concept is not "racialist" and that "Anglospherism is based on the intellectual understanding of the roots of both successful market economies and constitutional democracies in strong civil society."[3]
Bennett's 2004 book The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century argues there are two challenges confronting his concept of the Anglosphere. The first is finding ways to cope with rapid technological and the second is the geopolitical challenges created by what he assumes will be an increasing gap between anglophone prosperity and economic struggles elsewhere.[citation needed]
Other works of Bennett's on this issue are the pamphlets The Anglosphere Primer,[4] and The Third Anglosphere Century[5].
The Andrew Roberts book A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900 refers to Bennett's book and the Anglosphere, and promotes a "united we stand, divided we fall" ethos for the English-speaking world.[citation needed]
According to a 2003 profile in The Guardian, historian Robert Conquest favored a British withdrawal from the European Union in favor of creating "a much looser association of English-speaking nations, known as the "Anglosphere."[6]
John Ibbitson, an opinion columnist for the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail identified five core English-speaking countries with common sociopolitical heritage and goals: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[citation needed]
[edit] Criticisms
Left-leaning civil rights activist Tom Hayden, writing for Zmag, an online publication, defines proponents of the Anglosphere as wanting a United States where the dominant culture remains firmly rooted in an English tradition and says they reject multiculturalism. He predicts that in America, their project will fail. The "Anglosphere is dying, if only through demographics. It is a matter of time--of when, not whether. The newcomers have neither the need nor the capacity to assimilate into a declining Anglosphere."[7]
Michael Ignatieff wrote in an echange with Robert Conquest published by The New York Review of Books, that the term neglects the evolution of fundamental legal and cultural differences between the US and the UK, and the ways in which UK and European norms have drawn closer together. Of Conquest's view of the Anglosphere, Ignatieff writes: "He seems to believe that Britain should either withdraw from Europe or refuse all further measures of cooperation, which would jeopardize Europe's real achievements. He wants Britain to throw in its lot with a Union of English-speaking peoples, and I believe this to be a romantic illusion."[8] The notion of Anglospheric exceptionalism (as propagated by Bennett) comes under heavy criticism from various sources (advocates of multiculturalism and cultural relativism) which deem it an inherently far right theory.[9][10][11]
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[edit] References
- ^ | Word Spy blog "Anglosphere" entry
- ^ "Orphans of the Anglosphere?", James C. Bennett, Albion's Seedlings, November 21, 2005
- ^ a b The Anglosphere Primer: part 1, James C. Bennett, 24 July 2003
- ^ http://www.pattern.com/bennettj-anglosphereprimer.html
- ^ http://www.heritage.org/bookstore/anglosphere.pdf | The Third Anglosphere Century | James C. Bennett]
- ^ "Scourge and poet", Andrew Brown, The Guardian, February 15, 2003
- ^ Tom Hayden (4 May 2006). "Who Are You Calling An Immigrant?". http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10203. Retrieved on 2007-07-24.
- ^ Robert Conquest, Reply by Michael Ignatieff (23 March 2000). "THE 'ANGLOSPHERE'". The New York Review of Books. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/104. Retrieved on 2007-07-24.
- ^ http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=588
- ^ http://www.iza.org/index_html?lang=en&mainframe=http%3A//www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract%3Fdp_id%3D1938&topSelect=publications&subSelect=papers
- ^ http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/us_elections/2004/10/explaining_the_anglosphere_.html
