Tom Nairn

Tom Nairn (born 2 June 1932) is a Scottish political theorist and academic. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University. He is known as an essayist and a supporter of Scottish independence.

Life

Nairn was born on 2 June 1932 in Freuchie, Fife, the son of a school headmaster He attended Dunfermline High School and the Edinburgh College of Art before graduating from the University of Edinburgh with an MA in Philosophy in 1956. he was awarded a British Council scholarship in 1957 to the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, staying some time and becoming fluent in Italian. During the 1960s he studied in Dijon, worked in warehouses as a nightwatchman, and taught at various institutions including the University of Birmingham (1965-6).

He came to national prominence as a lecturer at Hornsey College of Art during 1968, involved in a student occupation. The occupation offered a major critique of the education system at the time. After the authorities regained control he was dismissed. He was then absent from secure university posts for three decades. He was at the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam from 1972–76, but resigned when his efforts to steer it towards becoming a pan-European thinktank failed. He then worked on and off as a journalist and TV researcher (mainly for Channel 4 and Scottish Television, Glasgow) 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 in Australia and worked with Paul James. He left in January 2010 when in his late '70s. Returning to France and then Britain, he was fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study of Durham University (2009).

Outline of his arguments

Nairn is considered one of the key thinkers of the British New Left, although he has expressed dissent from with what he sees as its generally nationalist nostalgia. From 1962, with Perry Anderson in ''New Left Review'', he developed a thesis (the "Nairn-Anderson thesis") to explain why Britain did not develop in a 'normal' way, which was defined as the continental European movement to anti-clericalism and Republicanism since the 1789 French Revolution.

By contrast, Nairn has long been an advocate of European integration, an argument he first put forward in ''The Left Against Europe'' (1973), when leftist opinion in the UK was very much against the idea.

He has been an advocate of Scottish independence as well as devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly and criticised the 1990s–2000s Blair Labour government for not giving those bodies enough power. While critical of Scottish elites, Nairn considered that Scotland’s economic potential had been limited by the concentration of power in London in combination with what he claims is the archaic nature of the British state.

An anthology of ''NLR'' articles, ''The Break-Up of Britain'' (1977, revised 1982) is the best known of Nairn's books on the nationalism theme. It is a Marxist critique of the emergence of worldwide nationalism. Essentially, Nairn contends that imperialism from the core countries (Western Europe) amongst the peripheral nations (Africa, Asia, Australia, etc.) motivated the peripheral elites to mobilize their exploited masses. As such, they created powerful myths and stories based on local artefacts and local happenings. The peripheral intelligentsia, as he denotes them, were inspired by both romanticism and populism. In a chapter devoted to him, Enoch Powell is placed in both traditions. Nairn's ideas on nationalism were in the news during Britain's protracted Brexit negotiations from 2016, and Scotland's desire to remain in the European Union; his major works have been reprinted

His republican inclinations meant that his ''The Enchanted Glass'' (1988) was one of the earliest serious modern investigations into the British monarchy from an abolitionist perspective. It won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award. Here and elsewhere Nairn uses the term 'Ukania' to suggest the irrational and Ruritanian nature of the British constitutional monarchy. His original source for the term is the nickname "Kakania" that Robert Musil uses for the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy in '' The Man Without Qualities''. An updated edition of ''The Enchanted Glass'' (published by Verso) appeared in 2011.

Honours

In 2009 he was elected a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Major works

''Books''
* Quattrocchi A and Nairn, T. (1968) ''The Beginning of the End: France, May 1968'' Panther Books
* Students and Staff of Hornsey College of Art (1969) ''The Hornsey Affair'', Penguin Books
* Nairn, T. (1973) ''The Left against Europe'', Penguin
* Nairn, T. (1977) ''The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neonationalism'', London: NLB (2nd ed. 1981 Verso; 3rd 2003 Common Ground Pub) (paperback released in 1981 and republished in 2021),
* Nairn, T. (1988) ''The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy'', London: Radius (2nd ed. 1994, Vintage. 3rd ed. 2011),
* Nairn, T. (1992) ''Auld enemies: Essays from the "Nairn on Monday" column'', The Scotsman, Glasgow : Common Cause
* Nairn, T. (1997) ''Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited'', Verso (2nd ed. 2005),
* Quattrocchi A and Nairn, T. (1998) ''The Beginning of the End: France, May 1968'', Verso
* Nairn, T. (2001) ''After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland'', Granta,
* Nairn, T. (2002) ''Pariah: Misfortunes of the British Kingdom'', Verso
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* Nairn, T (2006) ''Global Nations'', Verso
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* Nairn, T (2006) ''Gordon Brown: Bard of Britishness'', Cardiff: Institute of Welsh Affairs

''Articles and media''
He has written many articles for the '' London Review of Books'' and contributes regularly to ''openDemocracy'' as well as other publications.
* (Also reprinted in ''Break-up''.)
* Nairn, T. (1976) ''Northern Ireland: Relic or Portent?'', in Burnett, Ray (ed.), ''Calgacus'' No. 3, Spring 1976, pp. 36 - 50,
* Nairn T. (1976), review of ''The Radical Approach'' edited by Gavin Kennedy, in 'Question'', July 1976, pp. 8 - 10
* Nairn, T. (1980), ''Internationalism: A Critique'', in ''The Bulletin of Scottish Politics'' No. 1, Autumn 1980, pp. 101 - 125
* The Edinburgh lecture.

Articles on OpenDemocracy.net
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References

Literature

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:Tributes from Perry Anderson ''et al''
* Turnbull, Ronald and Beveridge, Craig (1983), ''Scottish Nationalist, British Marxist: The Strange Case of Tom Nairn'', in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), ''Cencrastus'' No. 13, Summer 1983, pp. 2 - 5,

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nairn, Tom
1932 births
Scottish essayists
Alumni of Middlesex University
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Living people
New Left
Scholars of nationalism
RMIT University faculty
People educated at Dunfermline High School
People from Fife
Academics of Durham University
Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art
Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
Scottish republicans