Throughout four millennia of recorded history there has been no end to empire, but instead an endless succession of empires.
Political Science
Unfinished Empire
September 2012
|
Book
John Darwin won the Wolfson History Prize for his book After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires. In Unfinished Empire he examines the enormous influence of the British Empire.
Exits and Colonial Administrations
August 2012
|
Chapter
|
Exit Strategies and State Building
By examining the major challenges associated with the conclusion of international state-building operations and the requirements for the maintenance of peace in the period following exit, this book provides unique perspective on a critical ...
Orphans of Empire
September 2010
|
Chapter
|
Settlers and Expatriates
The British Empire gave rise to various new forms of British identity in the colonial world outside the Dominions. In cities and colonies, and in sovereign states subject to more informal pressures such as Argentina or China, communities of Britons developed identities inflected by local ambitions and pressures. As a result they often found themselves at loggerheads with their diplomatic or colonial office minders, especially in the era of decolonisation. The impact of empire on metropolitan British identity is increasingly well documented; the evolution of dominions' nationalisms is likewise well known; but the new species of Britishness which attained their fullest form in the mid-twentieth century have received significantly less attention.
Settlers and Expatriates revisits the communities formed by these hundreds of thousands of Britons, as well as the passages home taken by some, and assesses their development, character, and legacy today. Scholars with established expertise in the history of each region explore the communalities that can be found across British communities in South, East and Southeast Asia, Egypt, and East and Southern Africa, and highlight the particularities that were also distinctive features of each British experience. These overseas Britons were sojourners and settlers; some survived in post-independent states, others were swept out quickly and moved on or back to an often uninterested metropolitan Britain. They have often been caricatured and demonized, but understanding them is important for an understanding of the states in which they lived, whose politics were at times a crucial part of British history and the history of migration and settlement.
History
Empire and Ethnicity
July 2010
|
Journal article
|
Nations and Nationalism
Historians and social scientists have typically assumed a conflictual or exploitative relationship between empire and ethnicity. On the one hand, empire might be seen (as perhaps Ernest Gellner saw it in Nations and Nationalism) as a superstructure of coercion to which a group of ethnic units were subject. On the other (according to an influential view), empire fabricated ethnicities (tribes or castes) to divide and rule. This article suggests that both of these views are too crude. In the British case at least (and in the modern history of empire, no generalisation that excludes the British case has much value), ‘imperial ethnicity’ was a much more subtle phenomenon. It existed ‘at home’ as one element in a more complex identity. It was a powerful force in British settler societies, where an indigenous identity could not be imagined. And, perhaps surprisingly, it was deeply attractive to some colonial elites in Asia and Africa – at least for a time.
The Empire Project
October 2009
|
Book
The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the ...
History
After Tamerlane The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
December 2008
|
Book
It takes a fresh look at our global past. Our idea of world history is still dominated by the view from the West: it is Europe's expansion that takes centre-stage. But for much of the six-hundred year span of this book.
History
Brtian's Empires
January 2008
|
Chapter
|
The British Empire; Themes and Perspectives
History
Was there a Fourth British Empire?
January 2006
|
Chapter
|
The British Empire in the 1950s Retreat or Revival?
This collection of studies examines the history of the British empire during the 1950s. This is a relatively neglected period in the historiography of British decolonization, coming as it does after the more well researched era of the late 1940s that saw the start of moves to decolonize the empire. The papers in this volume analyze imperial policy and the place of the empire in British society during the 1950s and the degree to which these years represented a period of continuing retreat or of imperial re-assertion.
History
Gallagher's Empire'
July 2005
|
Chapter
|
Yet More Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain
Here is a colorful collection of writings by well known scholars and critics on modern Britain's literature and history.
History
The Dominions and India since 1900: Select Documents in the Constitutional History of the British Empire and Commonwealth
December 2003
|
Book
The sixth volume in a continuing series of Select Documents On The Constitutional History Of The British Empire And Commonwealth, this book documents the final stages of decolonization of the British Empire. It covers the original five Dominions, the Irish Free State, and India.
Gentlemanly Capitalism, Imperialism and Global History
January 2002
|
Chapter
The Impact of the South African War
January 2002
|
Chapter
The Rhodes Trust in the Age of Empire
January 2001
|
Chapter
|
The History of the Rhodes Trust, 1902-1999
This is the first comprehensive history of the Rhodes Trust, based on documentation in the relevant constituencies as well as on the archives of the Trust. At his death, the British imperialist and entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes left a substantial fortune to be administered by Trustees. In the century since his death, the Trust has funded the system of international Rhodes Scholarships set out in his will, enabling more than 6,000 scholars from over thirty countries to study at Oxford University.
Education
International Diplomacy and Colonial Retreat
October 2000
|
Chapter
4303 Historical Studies, 4408 Political Science, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 44 Human Society
Afterword
June 2000
|
Chapter
|
New Frontiers Imperialism's New Communities in East Asia, 1842-1953
In the new world order mapped out by Japanese and Western imperialism in East Asia after the mid-nineteenth century opium wars, communities of merchants and settlers took root in China and Korea. New identities were constructed, new modes of collaboration formed and new boundaries between the indigenous and foreign communities were literally and figuratively established.
Newly available in paperback, this pioneering and comparative study of Western and Japanese imperialism examines European, American and Japanese communities in China and Korea, and challenges received notions of agency and collaboration by also looking at the roles in China of British and Japanese colonial subjects from Korea, Taiwan and India, and at Chinese Christians and White Russian refugees.
This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of the history and anthropology of imperialism, colonialism's culture and East Asian history, as well as contemporary Asian affairs.
History
Civil Histories
May 2000
|
Chapter
Between Europe and Empire: Britain's changing role in world politics since 1945
January 2000
|
Chapter
|
An Anglo-German Dialogue The Munich Lectures on the History of International Relations
These lectures provide a panoramic view of British foreign relations over the last 150 years. Paying particular attention to the Anglo-German dimension, the focus moves from the British attitude to the 1848 revolutions, to Kaiser Wilhelm II's relationship to England, right through to the policies of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair towards Germany and Europe.
In the first part aspects of British policy towards Germany and Europe in the mid and late nineteenth century are examined, while in the second part the focus is on the role of monarchs in the foreign policy. The third section deals with the nuances of British reactions to various aspects of German attitudes and policies from Gustav Stresemann's concept of international relations. The fourth part has as its theme the contradictions and tensions in Britain's retreat from the world stage. The final section, in examining Britain and Europe since the end of the Second World War, brings the story right up to date, including analysis of both the Labour and Conservative parties' policies towards Europe.
History
The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume IV: The Twentieth Century
October 1999
|
Chapter
The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume V: Historiography
October 1999
|
Chapter
An undeclared empire: The British in the Middle East 1918-1939
September 1999
|
Chapter
|
The Statecraft of British Imperialism Essays in Honour of Wm. Roger Louis
These stimulating essays reassess the meaning of British imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They are written by leading authorities in the field and range in scope from the aftermath of the American revolution to the liquidation of the British empire, from the Caribean to the Pacific, from Suez to Hong Kong.
History
Imperialism and the Victorians: The Dynamics of Territorial Expansion
June 1997
|
Journal article
|
The English Historical Review
Decolonization and the Asia Pacific
January 1997
|
Journal article
|
Bulletin of Asia-Pacific Studies
Hong Kong’s Transitions, 1842–1997
January 1997
|
Chapter
Africa in World Politics since 1945: theories of decolonization
March 1996
|
Chapter
|
Explaining International Relations Since 1945
History and theory are all too often treated as separate approaches to international relations. This book offers an accessible synthesis of sophisticated theory and in-depth history.
The uses of theory are examined in the opening section which includes a defence of the historical method by John Lewis Gaddis and the arguments for a more scientific method by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. The subsequent chapters of the book take major issues and episodes in international relations since 1945 (such as the rise of Japan, change in Latin America, wars in the Middle East, and decolonization) and demonstrate how it is that particular theories assist in explaining them. These include theories of power, cooperation, alliances, empire, integration, and arms control.
The student is left with a nuanced view of history and a critical but constructive approach to theories of international relations. The book challenges both students and academics to think afresh about the ways they analyse international relations.
Political Science
The Central African Emergency, 1959
January 1994
|
Chapter
|
Emergencies and Disorder in the European Empires After 1945
Bringing together for the first time leading historians of European decolonization, this book is a landmark in the comparative analysis of the fall of the European empires, viewed both as a problematic of European policy-making and as a formative experience in the development of new states.
History
The End of the British Empire: the Historical Debate
January 1991
|
Book
Within 20 years of victory in World War II, Britain had ceased to be a world power and her global empire had dissolved into fragments. With what now seems astonishing rapidity, an empire three centuries old which had reached its greatest extent as late as 1921 was transformed into more than 50 sovereign states.;Why did this great transformation come about? Had Britain simply become too weak in a world of superpowers? Had the pressure of colonial nationalism suddenly become overwhelming? Or had the British themselves decided that they no longer needed an empire, and that their interests were better served by joining the rich man's club of Europe?;In this short book, these and other theories are examined critically. The aim is not to present a detailed narrative of Britain's imperial retreat, but to introduce the reader to the current state of debate in a rapidly expanding subject...
Britain and Decolonisation The Retreat from Empire in the Post-war World
November 1988
|
Book
As the greatest imperial power before 1939 Britain played a leading role in the great post-war shift in the relationship between the West and the Third World which we call 'decolonisation'. But why did decolonisation come about and what were its effects? Was nationalism in colonial societies or indifference in Britain the key factor in the dissolution of the British Empire? Was the decay of British power and influence an inevitable consequence of imperial decline? Did British policies in the last phase of empire reflect an acceptance of decline or the hope that it could be postponed indefinitely by timely concessions? This book aims to answer these questions in a general account of Britain's post-war retreat from empire.