Showing papers in "The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History in 2010"
TL;DR: The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-1840 as mentioned in this paper, edited by David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 xxxii++ 301 pp., ISBN: 978-0230580473 (£16.99 paperback)
Abstract: The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840 Edited by David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 xxxii + 301 pp., ISBN: 978-0230580473 (£16.99 paperback) Sti...
52 citations
TL;DR: Porter as mentioned in this paper described the cultural turn of Eastern war through Western eyes, arguing that "the cultural turn is not new, but the latest ve... [the] "cultural turn" is new."
Abstract: Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes Patrick Porter London, Hurst, 2009 x + 264 pp., ISBN: 978-1-85065-959-4 (£14.99 paperback) [The] ‘cultural turn’ is not new, but the latest ve...
49 citations
TL;DR: This article reviewed the evidence of reported cases of sexual assaults to provide a detailed account of their social and cultural resonance for settler society, concluding that sexual assault of the innocent and helpless (children and the elderly) sparked the most vociferous debates, culminating in 1926 in the introduction of legislation making the rape or attempted rape of a white woman by a black man a capital offence in Kenya.
Abstract: This essay deals with ‘black peril’ scares in colonial Kenya, reviewing the evidence of reported cases of sexual assaults to provide a detailed account of their social and cultural resonance for settler society. Reported cases of assault were few in number and the outbreaks of ‘peril’ more sporadic in Kenya than in other settler societies in Africa, yet the exceptional nature of individual reported incidents of sexual assault was highly significant in shaping public perceptions of the real (or imagined) threat to ‘white purity’. Sexual assault of the innocent and helpless—children and the elderly—sparked the most vociferous of Kenya's ‘black peril’ debates, culminating in 1926 in the introduction of legislation making the rape or attempted rape of a white woman by a black man a capital offence in Kenya. Fears and anxieties about the threat of African sexuality were incubated in the hothouse of Kenya's small and insular settler community, but were also informed by a wider discourse on social morality and m...
44 citations
TL;DR: A global historical approach to American protectionism and the British imperial federation movement of the late nineteenth century, showing how US tariff policy was intimately intertwined with the political and economic policies of the British empire of free trade is presented in this article.
Abstract: This article takes a global historical approach to American protectionism and the British imperial federation movement of the late nineteenth century, showing how US tariff policy was intimately intertwined with the political and economic policies of the British empire of free trade. This article argues that the 1890 McKinley Tariff's policies helped call into question Britain's liberal, free trade, global empire by drumming up support for an imperial, protectionist, preferential Greater Britain. The tariff also speeded up the demand and development of more efficient transportation and communications—technological developments that made imperial federation all the more viable—within the British Empire. This article is thus a global history of the McKinley Tariff's impact upon the British Empire, as well as a study of the tariff's effect upon the history of modern globalisation.
28 citations
TL;DR: Geopolitics and Empire: The Legacy of Halford Mackinder as mentioned in this paper, by Gerry Kearns, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, x + 344 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-923011-1 (£53.00 hardback).
Abstract: Geopolitics and Empire: The Legacy of Halford Mackinder. GERRY KEARNS, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, x + 344 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-923011-1 (£53.00 hardback).
23 citations
TL;DR: Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization Daniel Branch Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009 xxi+250 pp., ISBN: 978-0-521-13090-5 ($24.99 paperback)...
Abstract: Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization Daniel Branch Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009 xxi+250 pp., ISBN: 978-0-521-13090-5 ($24.99 paperback)...
22 citations
TL;DR: The authors used the details of those who fled to Trinidad from the violence of the Venezuelan war of independence in 1814, 1815 and 1816 as a prism through which to view female agency in the southern Caribbean during first two decades of the nineteenth century.
Abstract: This article uses the details of those who fled to Trinidad from the violence of the Venezuelan war of independence in 1814, 1815 and 1816 as a prism through which to view female agency in the southern Caribbean during first two decades of the nineteenth century. In particular it focuses on free coloured women as being able to exploit the poorly controlled edges of empire for their own advantage. Characterised by a self-reliant independence these women were at once highly mobile, independent and influential. These women have been marginalised in the histories of the region and yet this research suggests that they had a far more prevalent and powerful role in shaping its character and history than has been recognised to date.
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is now commonplace to acknowledge that the last two decades have witnessed a widespread shift in the interest and attitudes of imperial and colonial historians towards the study of culture.
Abstract: It is now commonplace to acknowledge that the last two decades have witnessed a widespread shift in the interest and attitudes of imperial and colonial historians towards the study of culture. So m...
20 citations
TL;DR: A common law doctrine of aboriginal or customary title neither underpinned imperial policies towards Māori property rights in the 1830s and 1840s nor was it viewed as a settled or broadly accepted legal doctrine as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: What is often referred to as a common law doctrine of aboriginal or customary title neither underpinned imperial policies towards Māori property rights in the 1830s and 1840s nor was it viewed as a settled or broadly accepted legal doctrine. Rather, critics of imperial policies applying to New Zealand deployed these legal sources in order to challenge and influence the workings of imperial policy on British settlement within New Zealand. The particular emphasis of such policy was on disciplining the extent of such settlement and providing a land fund from crown grants. Imperial policy-makers did not endorse these legal sources despite their use in the decision of the New Zealand Supreme Court in Regina v Symonds (1847). In this context, there was no consensual legal view or approach as to the nature or content of indigenous property rights. Ultimately, in the face of disagreement, diverse views of the nature and extent of Māori property rights persisted. The perceived non-justiciability of such rights mea...
20 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored how the environmental reforms proposed by British advisers radically changed land use in the Middle East between 1946 and 1970, and left behind a remarkable legacy of conservation, which led the Foreign Office, and many historians, to overlook the importance of the BMEO.
Abstract: Britain attempted to create an informal empire in the Middle East and used the British Middle East Office to sponsor development work precisely to attain a significant influence in the region, one that would salvage a fair share of rapidly declining imperial power. Environmental initiatives, many of them focusing on forestry, composed a key element of this programme. However an informal empire did not ensue. This led the Foreign Office, and many historians, to overlook the importance of the BMEO. This article explores how the environmental reforms proposed by British advisers radically changed land use in the Middle East between 1946 and 1970, and left behind a remarkable legacy of conservation.
18 citations
TL;DR: What made the WAMS and the new tropical medicine thoroughly imperial was nothing accomplished in practice, but the hopes and aspirations placed in them.
Abstract: Established in 1902, the West African Medical Staff (WAMS) brought together the six medical departments of British West Africa. Its formation also followed the foundation of schools of tropical medicine in London and Liverpool. While the ‘white’ dominions were at the centre of Joseph Chamberlain's ambitions of erecting a system of imperial preference, the tropical colonies were increasingly tethered to the future security and prosperity of Greater Britain. Therefore, politicians and businessmen considered the WAMS and the new tropical medicine important first steps for making Britain's West African possessions healthier and more profitable regions of the empire. However, rather than realising these goals, significant structural barriers, and the self-interest and conservatism this helped breed among medical officers, made the application of even the most basic public health measures extremely challenging. Like many policies emanating from Whitehall during this period, what made the WAMS and the new tropic...
TL;DR: The authors examined the features of the collaboration mechanism that permitted a handful of Anglo-Egyptian colonial officers to incorporate tribal shaykhs and educated Sudanese into the structure of the colonial regime (1898-1956) and manipulate religious leaders and merchants to function in harmony with the government's objectives.
Abstract: This article examines the features of the collaboration mechanism that permitted a handful of Anglo-Egyptian colonial officers to incorporate tribal shaykhs and educated Sudanese into the structure of the colonial regime (1898–1956) and manipulate religious leaders and merchants to function in harmony with the government's objectives. It discusses how the Khartoum policy-makers maintained a wide scope of choices in shifting their support from one client to another along the lines of their political agendas. It investigates the gradual shift from collaboration mechanism to party politics, highlighting the response of the Khartoum policy-makers and the Sudanese nationalists who were largely influenced by the divergent attitudes of London and Cairo towards the future of the Sudan, and that of Sayyid Ali al-Mirghani and Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi who had a widespread influence on Sudanese society. The distinctive features of the pre-independence political discourse are examined in terms of the support that...
TL;DR: The Common Organisation of Saharan Regions (OCRS) intended to merge all French territories in the Sahara, in an attempt to guarantee prolonged French control over the region while justifying it on the grounds that oil revenue was to finance the development of the areas where extraction took place.
Abstract: The traumatic decolonisation of Algeria has tended to overshadow more peaceful transfers of power elsewhere in the French African Empire. This is particularly so in the case of the Sahara, where local populations accommodated themselves exceptionally well to colonial rule after the First World War. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the political stability of the region, combined with its newly discovered energetic resources and strategic value as a nuclear testing site, led the French to reflect upon ways of preparing for the Sahara a future separate from the rest of Algeria, the fate of which was increasingly clear as de Gaulle had no choice but to gear his policy towards self-determination. The Common Organisation of Saharan Regions (OCRS) intended to merge all French territories in the Sahara, in an attempt to guarantee prolonged French control over the region while justifying it on the grounds that oil revenue was to finance the development of the areas where extraction took place. The widely publici...
TL;DR: The origins of Amery's views on air power lay in his childhood, his experience covering the South African War and the ‘national efficiency’ movement of Edwardian Britain this article.
Abstract: In January 1904, at a lecture by a famous geographer, only a few weeks after the first flight of the Wright brothers, a young journalist named Leo Amery argued that air power would become a major ingredient of world power. His prescient comment is often quoted, but only to be glossed over. This article elaborates on it. The origins of Amery's views on air power lay in his childhood, his experience covering the South African War and the ‘national efficiency’ movement of Edwardian Britain. His views developed through his service in a variety of government appointments, including Lloyd George's Cabinet in the First World War and Churchill's Cabinet in the Second World War, and he occasionally managed to get his ideas turned into actions. Thus contextualised, Amery's views on air power illuminate both the man and the times through which he lived.
TL;DR: Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire Philip Howell Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009 xii++ 299 pp., ISBN: 978-0-521-85365-1 (£55.0...
Abstract: Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire Philip Howell Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009 xii + 299 pp., ISBN: 978-0-521-85365-1 (£55.0...
TL;DR: This paper examined the nature of Menon's relationship with the CPGB, the risk that communists working for him within India's High Commission posed to British security, and the strategy that MI5 developed to meet it.
Abstract: Recently released Security Service (MI5) documents offer new insights into the Indian government's vulnerability to communist subversion after 1947, and the extent to which this threatened British national security. Existing historical works have noted MI5's concern over the links between Indian nationalists and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) during the inter-war period. Absent from the current historiography, however, is an account of the British government's response to V. K. Krishna Menon's appointment as India's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 1947. This article examines the nature of Menon's relationship with the CPGB, the risk that communists working for him within India's High Commission posed to British security, and the strategy that MI5 developed to meet it. Taken as a whole, as this article illustrates, the Attlee government's conviction that India, and more particularly, Krishna Menon, represented a weak link in the Commonwealth security chain, opens up new perspectives on Anglo-Indian relations post-1947.
TL;DR: The Postcolonial Enlightenment: Eighteenth-Century Colonialism and Postcolonial Theory as mentioned in this paper, edited by Daniel Carey and Lynn Festa Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009 xiii + 378 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-922...
Abstract: The Postcolonial Enlightenment: Eighteenth-Century Colonialism and Postcolonial Theory Edited by Daniel Carey and Lynn Festa Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009 xiii + 378 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-922...
TL;DR: Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807-1975 K. Hamilton and P. Salmon London, Sussex Academic Press, 2009 229 pp., ISBN: 978-1845192983 (£49.94 hardback...
Abstract: Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807–1975 K. Hamilton and P. Salmon London, Sussex Academic Press, 2009 229 pp., ISBN: 978-1845192983 (£49.94 hardback...
TL;DR: The authors examined the imperial dimension of Winston Churchill's rhetoric on Ireland over the course of his entire career, and argued that rhetorical analysis is a valuable but neglected tool for Irish and imperial historians.
Abstract: This article examines the imperial dimension of Winston Churchill's rhetoric on Ireland over the course of his entire career. Whereas previous discussions of Churchill and the Irish question have tended to focus on whether he was sincere or opportunistic, his views are treated here in the context of the rhetorical environment in which he was operating. It is shown that, in his Edwardian Liberal phase, his argument that Home Rule would strengthen the Empire was part of a pre-existing Liberal and Nationalist discourse. He refashioned these arguments in order to sell the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921–22, but they were later turned against him by Conservative colleagues when he opposed the Statute of Westminster, and the imperial dimension of his Irish rhetoric weakened thereafter. However, certain themes, such as his praise of Irish military heroism, remained constant. It is argued that rhetorical analysis is a valuable but neglected tool for Irish and imperial historians.
TL;DR: The use of armed force in the East India Company's domestic governance has been extensively studied in the literature as discussed by the authors, focusing on the period after the 1810s, when ideas regarding the importance of fostering the colonial government's reputation within Indian society for absolute military rule, tempered by justice, were gaining prominence through the work of Sir John Malcolm and the adherents of the ‘Empire of Opinion’ school.
Abstract: There has been a tendency in the historiography covering the use of armed force in the East India Company's domestic governance to concentrate on the period after the 1810s, when ideas regarding the importance of fostering the colonial government's reputation within Indian society for absolute military rule, tempered by justice, were gaining prominence through the work of Sir John Malcolm and the adherents of the ‘Empire of Opinion’ school. However, the governmental practice of the previous generation of the Company's district administrators, operating before the establishment of a military hegemony, a professional bureaucracy or an accumulated body of Anglo-Indian governmental knowledge, has received comparatively little attention. As this article seeks to demonstrate through the example of the district of Chittagong in Bengal during the late eighteenth century, such a study reveals much about the priorities and limitations of local government in this formative period of British colonial rule.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the nature of the Gilgit agency and the manner in which it ultimately became a de facto part of Pakistan while Kashmir acceded to India, and assesses the status and then formal accession of the two small states of Hunza and Nagar, adjacent to Gilgit, which had been erroneously treated as being under the complete suzerainty of Kashmir.
Abstract: The August 1947 transfer of power in India brought to the fore questions regarding the future of the areas which had long been leased by the government of India from certain princely states. Focusing on the Gilgit Agency, parts of which were leased from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, this article traces the nature of the agency and the manner in which it ultimately became a de facto part of Pakistan while Kashmir acceded to India. Conflicting accounts exist as to who was actually responsible for the revolution in Gilgit which led it towards Pakistan. This article uses all available sources to relate clearly and analyse the actual course of events during the tumultuous months of October and November 1947. The article also assesses the status and then formal accession of the two small states of Hunza and Nagar, adjacent to Gilgit, which had been erroneously treated as being under the complete suzerainty of Kashmir.
TL;DR: This paper showed that a policy meant to encourage cooperation among British and Canadian women had the unintended effect of accentuating cultural difference between these groups, and contributed to a clearer articulation of a feminised English-Canadian identity in the interwar years.
Abstract: In 1927, the Canadian Department of Immigration and Colonization agreed to support a joint British-Canadian training scheme for British female domestics bound for the dominion. Under the larger initiative called Empire Settlement, not only did the programme attract few trainees, but even fewer of the trained migrant women remained in domestic service once in Canada. In an effort to account for failure, the Canadian women promoting the scheme turned to blaming the British whom they saw as deficient in work ethic and domestic practices. This study shows that a policy meant to encourage cooperation among British and Canadian women had the unintended effect of accentuating cultural difference between these groups, and contributed to a clearer articulation of a feminised English-Canadian identity in the interwar years.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the attempts by pre-and post-union (1910) South African governments to create effective sedition laws, partly directly to curb specific political opponents, but also to license and focus state intelligence-gathering activities.
Abstract: This article is about the attempts by pre- and post-Union (1910) South African governments to create effective sedition laws, partly directly to curb specific political opponents, but also to license and focus state intelligence-gathering activities. Supreme Court judges' adherence to a rule-of-law formalism in a succession of court cases both hindered and encouraged these attempts. I am particularly interested in how the courts' imposition of more rigorous standards of performance in the production of evidence eventually exceeded the state's bureaucratic capability and undermined officials' confidence in the instrumental value of the rule of law, leading administrators to enact legislation to suppress their political adversaries without reference to the courts. The judges' stance in this history was not one of progressive or sudden capitulation to the lawmakers' and executive's will, as is sometimes argued, but notably consistent throughout.
TL;DR: This paper examined the children's books of Priscilla Wakefield and found that her experience of the British Empire's territories was, in the main, derived from the work of others but her use of interesting characters, exciting travel scenarios, the epistolary form to enhance the narrative and fold-out maps added interest to the information she presented.
Abstract: While most discussions of juvenile imperial literature relate to the mid-nineteenth century onwards, this article draws attention to an earlier period by examining the children's books of Priscilla Wakefield. Between 1794 and 1817 Priscilla Wakefield wrote sixteen children's books that included moral tales, natural history books and a popular travel series. Her experience of the British Empire's territories was, in the main, derived from the work of others but her use of interesting characters, exciting travel scenarios, the epistolary form to enhance the narrative and fold-out maps added interest to the information she presented. Her strong personal beliefs are evident throughout her writing and an abhorrence of slavery is a recurring theme. She was also the grandmother and main caregiver of the young Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his immediate siblings. In contrast to his grandmother, Edward Gibbon Wakefield's experience of the empire was both theoretical and practical. He drew on, and departed from, the ...
TL;DR: The Freedom and Constraint in Caribbean Migration and Diaspora edited by Elizabeth Thomas-Hope Kingston, Ian Randle, 2009 430 pp., ISBN: 978-9766373511 £18.95 paperback as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Freedom and Constraint in Caribbean Migration and Diaspora Edited by Elizabeth Thomas-Hope Kingston, Ian Randle, 2009 430 pp., ISBN: 978-9766373511 (£18.95 paperback) This collection of more than t...
TL;DR: Projecting Empire: Imperialism and Popular Cinema as mentioned in this paperocusing on the role of women in popular culture, the authors of this book reflect the renewed intension of women's participation in political life.
Abstract: Projecting Empire: Imperialism and Popular Cinema James Chapman and Nicholas J. Cull London, I. B. Tauris, 2009 244 pp. ISBN: 978-1-84511-940-9 (£15.99 paperback) This book reflects the renewed int...
TL;DR: Mangan and Abingdon as mentioned in this paper described the "blooding" of the Martial Male by the British military and showed that it can be traced back to the early 19th century.
Abstract: Militarism, Hunting, Imperialism: ‘Blooding’ the Martial Male J. A. Mangan and Callum C. McKenzie Abingdon, Routledge, 2009 258 pp., ISBN: 978-0-415-42955-9 (£75.00 hardback) There can be no doubt ...
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