Anglosphere

Anglosphere is a term with conflicting meanings. For some, the Anglosphere is just those set of nations with English as the most common language. For many others, it is a set of nations which share an "English-like" character and culture, particularly including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. Further still, the Anglosphere has strong global socio-economic connotations, as the six countries which comprise the anglosphere have among the world's highest standards of living.

Definitions

Definitions of the Anglosphere vary: countries in which English is the first language of a majority of the population are shown in blue; other countries with substantial adoption of English are shown in light blue

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines the Anglosphere as "the group of countries where English is the main native language".^[1] The Merriam-Webster dictionary uses the less inclusive definition, saying "the countries of the world in which the English language and cultural values predominate".^[2]

Proponents

The US 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 2004 book The Anglosphere Challenge:

The Anglosphere, as a network civilization without a corresponding political form, has necessarily imprecise boundaries. Geographically, the densest nodes of the Anglosphere are found in the United States and the United Kingdom. English-speaking Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and English-speaking South Africa are also significant populations. The English-speaking Caribbean, English-speaking Oceania, and the English-speaking educated populations in Africa and India constitute other important nodes.

—James C. Bennett.^[3]

Bennett, argues there are two challenges confronting his concept of the Anglosphere. The first is finding ways to cope with rapid technological advancement and the second is the geopolitical challenges created by what he assumes will be an increasing gap between anglophone prosperity and economic struggles elsewhere.^[4]

Andrew Roberts claims that the Anglosphere has been central in the First World War, Second World War and Cold War. He goes on to contend that anglophone unity is necessary for the defeat of Islamism.^[5]

According to a 2003 profile in The Guardian, historian Robert Conquest favoured a British withdrawal from the European Union in favour of creating "a much looser association of English-speaking nations, known as the 'Anglosphere'".^[6]

Criticisms

Left-wing 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. Hayden predicts that in the US, 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 exchange 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 which deem it an inherently far-right theory.^[9][10][11]

See also

• English-speaking world
• History of the English language
• British Empire
• Anglicisation
• Commonwealth of Nations
• English in the Commonwealth of Nations
• ABCA Armies
• UKUSA Agreement
• Echelon
• History of the English Speaking Peoples (Winston Churchill)

Notes

references

• Bennett, James C. (2004). The anglosphere challenge: why the English-speaking nations will lead the way in the twenty-first century. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0742533328. 
• Brown, Andrew (15 February 2003). "Scourge and poet". http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetry/features/0,12887,902797,00.html. 
• Conquest, Robert; Reply by Ignatieff, Michael (23 March 2000), The 'Anglosphere', The New York Review of Books, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/104, retrieved 2007-07-24 
• Hayden, Tom (4 May 2006). "Who Are You Calling An Immigrant?". zmag. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10203. Retrieved 2007-07-24. 
• Jäntti, Markus; Bernt Bratsberg, Knut Roed, Oddbjørn Raaum, Robin Naylor, Eva Österbacka, Anders Björklund, Tor Eriks (January 2006). "American Exceptionalism in a New Light: A Comparison of Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the Nordic Countries, the United Kingdom and the United States". IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor. 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. 
• Merriam-Webster Staff (2010). "anglosphere.". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anglosphere. Retrieved August 5, 2010. 
• Reynolds, Glenn (28 October 2004). "Explaining the 'Anglosphere'". Guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/28/uselections2004.usa4. 
• Roberts, Andrew (2006). A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0297850768. 
• Roberts, Paul Craig (14 May 2008). "Anglo-American Ascendancy Lost in Unnecessary Wars". Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=588.