Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 The Roots that Clutch: John Buchan, Scottish Fiction and Scotland
- 2 A Civilizing Empire: T. H. Green, Lord Milner and John Buchan
- 3 A Very Modern Experiment: John Buchan and Rhodesia
- 4 ‘The Ministry of Information’: John Buchan's Friendship with T. E. Lawrence
- 5 Masculinities in the Richard Hannay ‘War Trilogy’ of John Buchan
- 6 John Buchan and the Emerging ‘Post-Modern’ Fact: Information Culture and the First World War
- 7 The Spy-Scattered Landscapes of Modernity in John Buchan's Mr Standfast
- 8 The Soul's ‘Queer Corners’: John Buchan and Psychoanalysis
- 9 John Buchan, Myth and Modernism
- 10 John Buchan and the American Pulp Magazines
- 11 What Kind of Heritage? Modernity versus Heritage in Huntingtower
- 12 Living Speech, Dying Tongues and Reborn Language: John Buchan and Scots Vernacular Poetry
- 13 John Buchan in Canada: Writing a New Chapter in Canada's Constitutional History
- Notes
- Index
2 - A Civilizing Empire: T. H. Green, Lord Milner and John Buchan
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- 1 The Roots that Clutch: John Buchan, Scottish Fiction and Scotland
- 2 A Civilizing Empire: T. H. Green, Lord Milner and John Buchan
- 3 A Very Modern Experiment: John Buchan and Rhodesia
- 4 ‘The Ministry of Information’: John Buchan's Friendship with T. E. Lawrence
- 5 Masculinities in the Richard Hannay ‘War Trilogy’ of John Buchan
- 6 John Buchan and the Emerging ‘Post-Modern’ Fact: Information Culture and the First World War
- 7 The Spy-Scattered Landscapes of Modernity in John Buchan's Mr Standfast
- 8 The Soul's ‘Queer Corners’: John Buchan and Psychoanalysis
- 9 John Buchan, Myth and Modernism
- 10 John Buchan and the American Pulp Magazines
- 11 What Kind of Heritage? Modernity versus Heritage in Huntingtower
- 12 Living Speech, Dying Tongues and Reborn Language: John Buchan and Scots Vernacular Poetry
- 13 John Buchan in Canada: Writing a New Chapter in Canada's Constitutional History
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The main analytical focus of this chapter will be on John Buchan's public life and non-fictional writing. By drawing on his autobiography, his editorial writing for the Scottish Review, essays, historical biographies, biographical sketches, public life and speeches, I seek to investigate Buchan's contribution to the wider public debate about empire which emerged in Britain at the turn of the nineteenth century. I will argue that one of his prime concerns was to steer his audience away from a modernity of physical deprivation caused by enclosed, urban spaces, and emotional and moral deprivation caused by intellectual futility and social fragmentation. I suggest that Buchan sought to educate his audience about how to promote change leading to opportunity for all, while at the same time maintaining a cohesive and stable society. I further suggest that this concern with the delicate balance required between liberalism and conservatism can be traced in a line of thought from the Oxford philosopher T. H. Green, to Lord Milner and thence to Buchan.
Although Buchan had an enormously varied professional career, culminating in his appointment as Governor-General of Canada in 1935, and although he was a prolific author who wrote on a wide range of subjects, he is chiefly remembered today for the series of popular ‘shockers’ featuring the character Richard Hannay.
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- Information
- John Buchan and the Idea of Modernity , pp. 33 - 48Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014