Political Catchphrases and Contemporary History
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Political Catchphrases and Contemporary History presents an historical account of the period 2001-2020 by focusing on the shifting connotations of certain political catchphrases and words. These allow for a linked-up narrative covering areas such as politics and policy, business and investing, austerity and inequality, identity, climate change, crowd protests, flexible working, and online education. Key junctures are 9/11, the 2002 dot-com crash and the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the Occupy movements of 2011-2012, China's economic policy from 2014 onwards, and the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Half the book is devoted to the unusually pervasive usage of the catchphrase 'new normal'. Chapters are also given to 'we are the 99%' and the catchwords 'austerity' and 'resilience'. Case studies of these catchphrases and words occupy much of the book. The final chapter makes conceptual inferences and proposes both a theory of political catchphrases and a distinctive approach to contemporary history. The source materials are predominantly from the UK and USA, but refer, naturally, to issues of global moment.
Suman Gupta is Professor of Literature and Cultural History at the Open University, UK. He was educated at the universities of Delhi and Oxford. He has coordinated a number of international collaborative projects, including Framing Financial Crisis and Protest, Northwest and Southeast Europe, 2014-2016, and held visiting positions in Delhi University, India; Peking University, China; University of Texas Austin, USA; Federal University of Campinas, Brazil; CRASSH, Cambridge University, UK; Wolfson College, Oxford University, UK; and Roehampton University, UK. Gupta has authored or co-authored 18 monographs, and edited or co-edited 15 books and journal special issues.