Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe

Rating:
Summary: Darian-Smith gets to the essence of English identity
Review: Eve Darian-Smith's book, Bridging Divides, does a good job of getting to the core of English questions about identity. Using the Channel Tunnel as both symbol and monument, she constructs a good argument on the changing face of the way the English view themselves. She says that land, or more specifically, how we experience and relate with our land, serves as the foundation for the principles we choose to organize ourselves by. That is to say our social order, or as she says, our legal code is a function of the landscape around us. And it is this code in particular which forms the identity groups of people use to label and differentiate themselves by.

The best part of her book comes as she initially puts forth her research on the matter by detailing the importance of the English Garden in history. She covers it's evolution and it's meaning over time reflecting upon concerns such as gender, property law and sensory engagement.

But the book weakens as it moves through the history of the tunnel itself, a progress she calls "repetitive and boring." But she arrives at the end of the book by pressing the correct questions drawn from the study: which histories will the English choose in the future, and which sorts of new identities will these new histories reveal?

Some of her logic fails to overcome opposition arguments, such as her comments regarding Foucault's differing opinions on territory and power. She does succeed in using a solid amount of research to support a streamlined argument. However, the folks she chooses to study tend to be those who have made the most fuss over the matter of the tunnel. She mentions in passing that there is a huge block of people which do not see the tunnel as a threat at all, but still goes on to quote unverifiable interviews with (sometimes nameless) townspeople who clearly have a bone to pick. The strength of her study, the research, is severely diluted because of this unfortunate narrowness of focus. If the English identity is so widely at risk, that risk should be felt far more widely than the retired Conservative mayors and MP's that she relies upon.

Rating:
Summary: Anthropology Heaven
Review: Though it gets to be a little think at sometimes, and goes crazy with the details, this is an excellent analysis of the issue or sovereignity and nationalism in the new Europe. Great anthropological study with LOTS of outside resources.

Rating:
Summary: Anthropology Heaven
Review: Though it gets to be a little think at sometimes, and goes crazy with the details, this is an excellent analysis of the issue or sovereignity and nationalism in the new Europe. Great anthropological study with LOTS of outside resources.