Regional Identity And Economic Change

Download or read book Regional Identity and Economic Change written by Tom Scott and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current debate about the best methods of European organization - central or regional - is influenced by an awareness of regional identity, which offers an alternative to the rigidities of organization by nation-state. Yet where does the sense of regionalism come from? What are thedistinctive factors that transform a geographical area into a particular 'region'? Tom Scott addresses these questions in this study of one apparently 'natural' region - the Upper Rhine - between 1450 and 1600. This region has been divided between three countries and so historically marginalized,yet Dr Scott is able to trace the existence of a sense of historical regional identity cutting across national frontiers, founded on common economic interests. But that identity was always contingent and precarious, neither 'natural' nor immutable.