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| A.L. Rowse and Cornwall: A Paradoxical Patriot (South-West Studies): A Paradoxical Patriot (South-West Studies) | 
 enlarge | Author: Philip Payton
Publisher: University of Exeter Press
Category: Book
List Price: £14.99
Buy New: £11.29
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 433906
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 324
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0859897982
Dewey Decimal Number: 907.202
EAN: 9780859897983
ASIN: 0859897982
Publication Date: July 27, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Mint Condition; We post daily by Royal Mail,from Uk location, Wrapped in bubble and inserted in jiffy bag ;Priority Airmail used Worldwide on International orders
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| Customer Reviews:
 "Hating to be born / amid the alien corn / of a home without books, music, art / or any promptings of the heart" March 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Following Rowse's death in 1997 we have had the late Richard Ollard's biography ("A Man of Contradictions") and an edition of Rowse's diaries. Both of these looked at Rowse in the round, largely but not exclusively from an Oxford ambit. As Payton, Professor of Cornish Studies and based in Cornwall, writes, "But it was also quickly apparent that Rowse's tortured and tortuous relationship with his native Cornwall would require extended treatment in a separate study of its own ... That is the purpose of this present volume." Its subtitle is "a paradoxical patriot".
The book is very well-written, lucid and engaging, and goes quite some way in attempting to explain his paradoxes. But this is not a deeply insightful psychological profile. Certainly, it tells the story of Rowse's relationship with his home and homeland, and provides some clues about the causes of the paradoxes in that relationship, but Payton is a historian not a psychoanalyst. Payton quotes heavily from Rowse's own papers (the words of the title of this review comes from one of Rowse's quoted poems) and has clearly mined them deeply.
Although the chapters follow a rough chronological pattern, each tends to focus on a particular issue. But there is an overall unity in the narrative: the journey that Rowse took when he turned his back on the county would eventually see his homecoming, but that the homecoming would be from an unexpected direction: "... it was, paradoxically, his experiences in that country [the United States] that had convinced him of the worth of Cornwall and the Cornish."
Payton, who had help from Rowse when he was doing research on the Cornish diaspora in South Australia, is also keen to see Rowse as a harbinger of the `new British historiography', whereby Cornwall plays its full part in the non-Anglo-centric history of the British Isles.
These notes cannot do the book justice, but it might be helpful to know the basic contents of each chapter: 1 - following his death, a look at his influence and character from a variety of views; 2 - origins and the road to Oxford; 3 - family relations; 4 - relationships with women; 5 - politics; 6 - his abandoning of Cornwall; 7 - his lauding of England; 8 - America; 9 - reclaiming Cornwall; 10 - isolation; and 11 - legacy.
A map showing the places in Cornwall where Rowse lived would certainly have been very helpful. There are a number of vivid photographs interspersed throughout the book. There are endnotes and an index.
 Rowse industry gets underway February 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A L Rowse liked to think of himself as being inscrutable to other people ("Not keen about people writing about me - they are simpy not up to the subject - too difficult for them"), but he reckoned without the skill of a fellow Cornish historian. Dr Philip Payton has penetrated deeply into Rowse's psyche in order to explain his contradictions and complexities. In so doing, he has told us something about the nature of the Cornish condition itself. This is of relevance not only to understanding "Cornwall's greatest son" but also to all those who continue to claim proudly to be 100% Cornish.
The book represents an important departure in the author's own career as a writer: an almost fully-fledged biography in everything but name in which he has tempered sharp intellectual analysis with human insight, solid research with some inspirational writing. His conclusion that ultimately Rowse felt Cornwall had failed him whilst at the same time he felt that he could have done more for Cornwall is a suitably paradoxical conclusion for this study of a paradoxical patriot.
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