Angus Calder - Nationalism

Nationalism

Questions of Scottish national identity assumed growing importance in the 1980s, and Calder became active in the debate. Although his upbringing in England had inculcated a love of English literature and of cricket, during the Thatcherite 1980s he found it impossible to support the English cricket team.

A distinctive "Scottish social ethos" informed the activities of prominent Scots in the years of Empire, when they had invested heavily in the concept of Britishness, though he felt that the Scots had meddled much more overweeningly with the English sense of identity than the English ever did with the Scots'. He was delighted to discover that the game had been introduced to Sri Lanka by a Scot.