G. A. Bremner (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198713326
- eISBN:
- 9780191781766
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198713326.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
The built environment is important to how we experience and negotiate our daily lives, both past and present. In the post-colonial world today, buildings, monuments, parks, streets, avenues, entire ...
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The built environment is important to how we experience and negotiate our daily lives, both past and present. In the post-colonial world today, buildings, monuments, parks, streets, avenues, entire cities even, remain as witness to Britain’s once impressive if troubled imperial past. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the architectural and urban transformations that took place across the British empire between the seventeenth and mid-twentieth centuries. With extensive chronological and regional coverage, by leading scholars in the field, this volume will quickly become a seminal text for those who study, teach, and research the relationship between empire and the built environment in the British context. It provides an up-to-date account of past and current historiographical approaches toward the study of British imperial and colonial architecture and urbanism, and will prove equally useful to those who study architecture and urbanism in other European imperial and transnational contexts. Divided in two main sections, over twelve chapters, the first part of the volume deals with overarching thematic issues, including building typologies, major genres and periods of activity, networks of expertise and the transmission of ideas, the intersection between planning and politics, as well as the architectural impact of empire on Britain itself. The second section builds on the first by discussing these themes in relation to specific geographical regions, teasing out the variations and continuities observable in context, both practical and theoretical. In addition to being fully referenced, each chapter includes a select bibliography of key scholarly sources.Less
The built environment is important to how we experience and negotiate our daily lives, both past and present. In the post-colonial world today, buildings, monuments, parks, streets, avenues, entire cities even, remain as witness to Britain’s once impressive if troubled imperial past. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the architectural and urban transformations that took place across the British empire between the seventeenth and mid-twentieth centuries. With extensive chronological and regional coverage, by leading scholars in the field, this volume will quickly become a seminal text for those who study, teach, and research the relationship between empire and the built environment in the British context. It provides an up-to-date account of past and current historiographical approaches toward the study of British imperial and colonial architecture and urbanism, and will prove equally useful to those who study architecture and urbanism in other European imperial and transnational contexts. Divided in two main sections, over twelve chapters, the first part of the volume deals with overarching thematic issues, including building typologies, major genres and periods of activity, networks of expertise and the transmission of ideas, the intersection between planning and politics, as well as the architectural impact of empire on Britain itself. The second section builds on the first by discussing these themes in relation to specific geographical regions, teasing out the variations and continuities observable in context, both practical and theoretical. In addition to being fully referenced, each chapter includes a select bibliography of key scholarly sources.
Mark Roodhouse
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199588459
- eISBN:
- 9780191747564
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588459.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
Due to rationing and price control, Britain’s underground economy experienced a mid-century boom during the 1940s and early 1950s as producers, traders, and professional criminals helped consumers to ...
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Due to rationing and price control, Britain’s underground economy experienced a mid-century boom during the 1940s and early 1950s as producers, traders, and professional criminals helped consumers to get ‘a little bit extra’ ‘on the side’, ‘from under the counter’, or ‘off the back of a lorry’. And yet widespread evasion of regulations designed to ensure ‘fair shares for all’ did not undermine the austerity policies that characterized those years. This book draws upon a wide range of source material, including recently declassified documents, to argue that all these little bits did not amount to a lot because Britons showed self-restraint in their illegal dealings. The means, motives, and opportunities for evasion were not lacking. The shortages were real and felt, regulations were not watertight, and enforcement was haphazard. Fairness, not patriotism and respect for the law, is the key to understanding this self-restraint. By invoking popular notions of a fair price, a fair profit, and a fair share, government rhetoric stymied black marketeering as would-be evaders had to justify their offences to themselves and others in terms of getting their fair share at no one else’s expense. The book emphasizes the importance of fairness to those seeking a richer understanding of economic life in modern Britain, and reminds us that all trade is fair trade and all consumers are ethical consumers, at least according to their own lights. We just need to discover what those lights are.Less
Due to rationing and price control, Britain’s underground economy experienced a mid-century boom during the 1940s and early 1950s as producers, traders, and professional criminals helped consumers to get ‘a little bit extra’ ‘on the side’, ‘from under the counter’, or ‘off the back of a lorry’. And yet widespread evasion of regulations designed to ensure ‘fair shares for all’ did not undermine the austerity policies that characterized those years. This book draws upon a wide range of source material, including recently declassified documents, to argue that all these little bits did not amount to a lot because Britons showed self-restraint in their illegal dealings. The means, motives, and opportunities for evasion were not lacking. The shortages were real and felt, regulations were not watertight, and enforcement was haphazard. Fairness, not patriotism and respect for the law, is the key to understanding this self-restraint. By invoking popular notions of a fair price, a fair profit, and a fair share, government rhetoric stymied black marketeering as would-be evaders had to justify their offences to themselves and others in terms of getting their fair share at no one else’s expense. The book emphasizes the importance of fairness to those seeking a richer understanding of economic life in modern Britain, and reminds us that all trade is fair trade and all consumers are ethical consumers, at least according to their own lights. We just need to discover what those lights are.
Anne Spry Rush
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199588558
- eISBN:
- 9780191728990
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588558.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
In the first half of the twentieth century Britishness was an integral part of the culture that pervaded life in the colonial Caribbean. Caribbean peoples were encouraged to identify with social ...
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In the first half of the twentieth century Britishness was an integral part of the culture that pervaded life in the colonial Caribbean. Caribbean peoples were encouraged to identify with social structures and cultural values touted as intrinsically British. Many middle-class West Indians of color duly adopted Britishness as part of their own identity. Yet even as they re-fashioned themselves, West Indians recast Britishness in their own image, basing it on hierarchical ideas of respectability that were traditionally British, but also on their own expectations of racial and geographical inclusiveness. Britain became for these Caribbean people the focus of an imperial British identity, an identity which stood separate from and yet intimately related to their strong feelings for their tropical homelands. Moving from the heights of empire in 1900 to the independence era of the 1960s, this book argues that middle-class West Indians used their understanding of Britishness to establish a place for themselves in the British imperial world, and to negotiate the challenges of decolonization. Through a focus on education, voluntary organization, the challenges of war, radio broadcasting, and British royalty it explores how this process worked in the daily lives of West Indians in both the Caribbean and the British Isles. This book thus traces West Indians' participation in a complex process of cultural transition as they manipulated Britishness and their relationship to it not only as colonial peoples but also as Britons.Less
In the first half of the twentieth century Britishness was an integral part of the culture that pervaded life in the colonial Caribbean. Caribbean peoples were encouraged to identify with social structures and cultural values touted as intrinsically British. Many middle-class West Indians of color duly adopted Britishness as part of their own identity. Yet even as they re-fashioned themselves, West Indians recast Britishness in their own image, basing it on hierarchical ideas of respectability that were traditionally British, but also on their own expectations of racial and geographical inclusiveness. Britain became for these Caribbean people the focus of an imperial British identity, an identity which stood separate from and yet intimately related to their strong feelings for their tropical homelands. Moving from the heights of empire in 1900 to the independence era of the 1960s, this book argues that middle-class West Indians used their understanding of Britishness to establish a place for themselves in the British imperial world, and to negotiate the challenges of decolonization. Through a focus on education, voluntary organization, the challenges of war, radio broadcasting, and British royalty it explores how this process worked in the daily lives of West Indians in both the Caribbean and the British Isles. This book thus traces West Indians' participation in a complex process of cultural transition as they manipulated Britishness and their relationship to it not only as colonial peoples but also as Britons.
Caroline Shaw
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- June 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190200985
- eISBN:
- 9780190201012
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190200985.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This book offers the first historical examination of the origins of refuge for persecuted foreigners. It argues that this modern humanitarian norm—the responsibility to protect foreign refugees of ...
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This book offers the first historical examination of the origins of refuge for persecuted foreigners. It argues that this modern humanitarian norm—the responsibility to protect foreign refugees of any race, class, politics, or creed—developed in nineteenth-century Britain through a popular movement that equated the provision of refuge with a national liberal identity and compelled even the most powerful politicians to heed its demands. The public’s moral enthusiasm for foreign refugees ironically drew strength from the political and physical resources of the British Empire. When the Empire’s resources came under strain in the late nineteenth century, the movement for refuge suffered. It was only during this period of retreat that attempts were made to codify a right to asylum and to define the refugee in law. The law formalized Britain’s commitment to persecuted foreigners, but it ultimately dampened popular enthusiasm by obviating public initiatives on refugees’ behalf. In telling this story, the book revises current understandings about the origins of refuge, which have focused exclusively on the period post-1914. The book also puts refugee relief front and center in histories of human rights and international law and of studies of Britain in the world. In so doing, it seeks to provide a better understanding of the dynamic relationship between law, resources, and moral storytelling that, central to the fortunes of refugee relief in the nineteenth century, remains critical today.Less
This book offers the first historical examination of the origins of refuge for persecuted foreigners. It argues that this modern humanitarian norm—the responsibility to protect foreign refugees of any race, class, politics, or creed—developed in nineteenth-century Britain through a popular movement that equated the provision of refuge with a national liberal identity and compelled even the most powerful politicians to heed its demands. The public’s moral enthusiasm for foreign refugees ironically drew strength from the political and physical resources of the British Empire. When the Empire’s resources came under strain in the late nineteenth century, the movement for refuge suffered. It was only during this period of retreat that attempts were made to codify a right to asylum and to define the refugee in law. The law formalized Britain’s commitment to persecuted foreigners, but it ultimately dampened popular enthusiasm by obviating public initiatives on refugees’ behalf. In telling this story, the book revises current understandings about the origins of refuge, which have focused exclusively on the period post-1914. The book also puts refugee relief front and center in histories of human rights and international law and of studies of Britain in the world. In so doing, it seeks to provide a better understanding of the dynamic relationship between law, resources, and moral storytelling that, central to the fortunes of refugee relief in the nineteenth century, remains critical today.
Simon J. Potter
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199568963
- eISBN:
- 9780191741821
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568963.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This book analyses the attempts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to use broadcasting as a tool of empire. From an early stage the corporation sought to unite home listeners with their ...
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This book analyses the attempts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to use broadcasting as a tool of empire. From an early stage the corporation sought to unite home listeners with their counterparts in the wider British world, particularly in the British settler diaspora in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The BBC saw this as part of its public-service mandate, and also as a means to strengthen its position at home: by broadcasting to and about the empire, it built up its own broadcasting empire. The BBC encouraged overseas the spread of the British approach to broadcasting, in preference to the American commercial model. During the 1930s it tried to work with the public broadcasting authorities that were established in the ‘dominions’: initially, these efforts met with limited success, but more progress was made in the later 1930s. High culture, royal ceremonies, sport, and even comedy were used to project Britishness, particularly on the BBC Empire Service, the predecessor of today's World Service. Commonwealth broadcasting collaboration intensified during the Second World War, and reached its climax during the late 1940s and 1950s. Belatedly, at this stage the BBC also began to consider the role of broadcasting in Africa and Asia, as a means to encourage ‘development’ and to combat resistance to continued colonial rule. However, during the 1960s, as decolonization entered its final, accelerated phase, the BBC staged its own imperial retreat.Less
This book analyses the attempts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to use broadcasting as a tool of empire. From an early stage the corporation sought to unite home listeners with their counterparts in the wider British world, particularly in the British settler diaspora in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The BBC saw this as part of its public-service mandate, and also as a means to strengthen its position at home: by broadcasting to and about the empire, it built up its own broadcasting empire. The BBC encouraged overseas the spread of the British approach to broadcasting, in preference to the American commercial model. During the 1930s it tried to work with the public broadcasting authorities that were established in the ‘dominions’: initially, these efforts met with limited success, but more progress was made in the later 1930s. High culture, royal ceremonies, sport, and even comedy were used to project Britishness, particularly on the BBC Empire Service, the predecessor of today's World Service. Commonwealth broadcasting collaboration intensified during the Second World War, and reached its climax during the late 1940s and 1950s. Belatedly, at this stage the BBC also began to consider the role of broadcasting in Africa and Asia, as a means to encourage ‘development’ and to combat resistance to continued colonial rule. However, during the 1960s, as decolonization entered its final, accelerated phase, the BBC staged its own imperial retreat.
James H. Mills
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199283422
- eISBN:
- 9780191746161
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283422.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
Cannabis has never been a more controversial substance in Britain. Over the last decade it has been reclassified twice, has been the subject of a range of official investigations and scientific ...
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Cannabis has never been a more controversial substance in Britain. Over the last decade it has been reclassified twice, has been the subject of a range of official investigations and scientific studies, and has provoked media campaigns and all manner of political gesturing. This book seeks to understand this period by placing it back into the historical context of the long-term story of cannabis and the British. It takes up where its predecessor, Cannabis Britannica: Empire, Trade and Prohibition, 1800–1928 left off. It traces the story back into the last days of the Empire, when Britain controlled cannabis-consuming societies in Asia and Africa even while there was little taste for the drug back home. It shows that cannabis was caught up in control regimes established to deal with opium and cocaine consumption, while it fell out of favour as a medicine. As such, when migration after the Second World War brought the Empire's cannabis consumers to the UK, they faced hostile attitudes towards their favourite intoxicant. From that time on a growing number of groups and agencies took an interest in cannabis. Ambitious bureaucrats in the Home Office saw in it an opportunity to draw resources into the Drugs Branch, while the police began to use laws related to it for a number of other purposes. Experts ranging from pharmacologists to sociologists formed committees on the subject and its association with colonial migrants lent it an exotic aura to the politically minded of the 1960s counter-culture and the working-class youth of Britain's inner cities. Since the 1970s governments were content to devolve responsibility to the police for working out the best legal approach to the substance, and efforts to wrest this back from them proved difficult a decade ago. The volume considers all of these trends, details the often eccentric characters that have shaped them, and concludes that current positions and arguments on cannabis can only be properly assessed if their historical origins are clearly understood.Less
Cannabis has never been a more controversial substance in Britain. Over the last decade it has been reclassified twice, has been the subject of a range of official investigations and scientific studies, and has provoked media campaigns and all manner of political gesturing. This book seeks to understand this period by placing it back into the historical context of the long-term story of cannabis and the British. It takes up where its predecessor, Cannabis Britannica: Empire, Trade and Prohibition, 1800–1928 left off. It traces the story back into the last days of the Empire, when Britain controlled cannabis-consuming societies in Asia and Africa even while there was little taste for the drug back home. It shows that cannabis was caught up in control regimes established to deal with opium and cocaine consumption, while it fell out of favour as a medicine. As such, when migration after the Second World War brought the Empire's cannabis consumers to the UK, they faced hostile attitudes towards their favourite intoxicant. From that time on a growing number of groups and agencies took an interest in cannabis. Ambitious bureaucrats in the Home Office saw in it an opportunity to draw resources into the Drugs Branch, while the police began to use laws related to it for a number of other purposes. Experts ranging from pharmacologists to sociologists formed committees on the subject and its association with colonial migrants lent it an exotic aura to the politically minded of the 1960s counter-culture and the working-class youth of Britain's inner cities. Since the 1970s governments were content to devolve responsibility to the police for working out the best legal approach to the substance, and efforts to wrest this back from them proved difficult a decade ago. The volume considers all of these trends, details the often eccentric characters that have shaped them, and concludes that current positions and arguments on cannabis can only be properly assessed if their historical origins are clearly understood.
Martin Francis
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199277483
- eISBN:
- 9780191699948
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199277483.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
Between 1939 and 1945, the British public was spellbound by the martial endeavours and dashing style of the young men of the RAF, especially those with silvery fabric wings sewn above the breast ...
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Between 1939 and 1945, the British public was spellbound by the martial endeavours and dashing style of the young men of the RAF, especially those with silvery fabric wings sewn above the breast pocket of their glamorous slate-blue uniform. The author provides the first scholarly study of the place of ‘the flyer’ in British culture during the Second World War. Examining the lives of RAF personnel, and their popular representation in literary and cinematic texts, he illuminates broader issues of gender, social class, national and racial identities, emotional life, and the creation of a national myth in twentieth-century Britain. In particular, he argues that the flyer's relationship to fear, aggression, loss of his comrades, bodily dismemberment, and psychological breakdown reveals broader ambiguities surrounding the dominant understandings of masculinity in the middle decades of the century. Despite his star appeal, cultural representations of the flyer encompassed both the gentle, chivalrous warrior and the uncompromising agent of destruction. Paying particular attention to the romantic universe of wartime aircrew, Francis reveals the extraordinary contrasts of their daily lives: dicing with death in the sky one moment, before sitting down to lunch with wives and children in the next. Male and female experiences during the war were not polarized and antithetical, but were complementary and interrelated, a conclusion which has implications for the history of gender in modern Britain that reach well beyond either the specialized military culture of the wartime RAF or the chronological parameters of the Second World War.Less
Between 1939 and 1945, the British public was spellbound by the martial endeavours and dashing style of the young men of the RAF, especially those with silvery fabric wings sewn above the breast pocket of their glamorous slate-blue uniform. The author provides the first scholarly study of the place of ‘the flyer’ in British culture during the Second World War. Examining the lives of RAF personnel, and their popular representation in literary and cinematic texts, he illuminates broader issues of gender, social class, national and racial identities, emotional life, and the creation of a national myth in twentieth-century Britain. In particular, he argues that the flyer's relationship to fear, aggression, loss of his comrades, bodily dismemberment, and psychological breakdown reveals broader ambiguities surrounding the dominant understandings of masculinity in the middle decades of the century. Despite his star appeal, cultural representations of the flyer encompassed both the gentle, chivalrous warrior and the uncompromising agent of destruction. Paying particular attention to the romantic universe of wartime aircrew, Francis reveals the extraordinary contrasts of their daily lives: dicing with death in the sky one moment, before sitting down to lunch with wives and children in the next. Male and female experiences during the war were not polarized and antithetical, but were complementary and interrelated, a conclusion which has implications for the history of gender in modern Britain that reach well beyond either the specialized military culture of the wartime RAF or the chronological parameters of the Second World War.
Asa Briggs
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780192129260
- eISBN:
- 9780191670008
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192129260.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This is the first part of a five-volume history of broadcasting in the UK. Together the volumes give an authoritative account of the rise of broadcasting in this country. Though naturally largely ...
More
This is the first part of a five-volume history of broadcasting in the UK. Together the volumes give an authoritative account of the rise of broadcasting in this country. Though naturally largely concerned with the BBC it does give a general history of broadcasting, not simply an institutional history of the BBC. This volume covers early amateur experiments in wireless telephony in America and in England, the pioneer days at Writtle in Essex and elsewhere, and the coming of organised broadcasting and its rapid growth during the first four years of the BBC's existence as a private company before it became a public corporation in January 1927. The book describes how and why the company was formed, the scope of its activities and the reasons which led to its conversion from a business enterprise into a national institution. The issues raised between 1923 and 1927 remain pertinent today. The hard bargaining between the Post Office, private wireless interests, and the emergent British Broadcasting Company is discussed in illuminating detail, together with the remarkable opposition with which the company had to contend in its early days. Many sections of the opposition, including a powerful section of the press, seemed able to conceive of broadcasting only as competing with their own interests, never as complementing or enlarging them. One of the main themes of this volume is that of the gradual forging of the instruments of public control, and particular attention is paid to the Crawford Report (1926) from which the BBC arose. During this period all the characteristics of the BBC first appeared — particularly its reputation for public service and impartiality. The book also examines the background of wireless as an invention and considers its impact on society. It has much to say about personalities and programmes as well as policies.Less
This is the first part of a five-volume history of broadcasting in the UK. Together the volumes give an authoritative account of the rise of broadcasting in this country. Though naturally largely concerned with the BBC it does give a general history of broadcasting, not simply an institutional history of the BBC. This volume covers early amateur experiments in wireless telephony in America and in England, the pioneer days at Writtle in Essex and elsewhere, and the coming of organised broadcasting and its rapid growth during the first four years of the BBC's existence as a private company before it became a public corporation in January 1927. The book describes how and why the company was formed, the scope of its activities and the reasons which led to its conversion from a business enterprise into a national institution. The issues raised between 1923 and 1927 remain pertinent today. The hard bargaining between the Post Office, private wireless interests, and the emergent British Broadcasting Company is discussed in illuminating detail, together with the remarkable opposition with which the company had to contend in its early days. Many sections of the opposition, including a powerful section of the press, seemed able to conceive of broadcasting only as competing with their own interests, never as complementing or enlarging them. One of the main themes of this volume is that of the gradual forging of the instruments of public control, and particular attention is paid to the Crawford Report (1926) from which the BBC arose. During this period all the characteristics of the BBC first appeared — particularly its reputation for public service and impartiality. The book also examines the background of wireless as an invention and considers its impact on society. It has much to say about personalities and programmes as well as policies.
Asa Briggs
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780192129307
- eISBN:
- 9780191670015
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192129307.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This is the second volume of a four-volume history of broadcasting in the United Kingdom. This volume covers the period from the beginning of 1927, when the BBC ceased to be a private company and ...
More
This is the second volume of a four-volume history of broadcasting in the United Kingdom. This volume covers the period from the beginning of 1927, when the BBC ceased to be a private company and became a public corporation, up to the outbreak of war in 1939. The acceptance of wireless as a part of the homely background of life and the acceptance of the BBC as the ‘natural’ institution for controlling it, distinguish this period from that covered in the first volume. From 1927 to 1939 the system of public control that had evolved from the early struggles was never seriously in jeopardy and the one big official inquiry, the Ullswater Report, favoured no major constitutional changes. The main theme of the second volume, therefore, may be called the extension and the enrichment of the activity of broadcasting. Different chapters deal with the programmes and programme-makers; the listeners and the ways in which their needs were (or were not) met as the system expanded; public attitudes to the BBC and the increasing complexity of its control and organization; the coming of television and the early experiments of Baird and others; and the retirement of Sir John Reith — not only the end of a regime but the end of an era. The volume ends with preparations for war.Less
This is the second volume of a four-volume history of broadcasting in the United Kingdom. This volume covers the period from the beginning of 1927, when the BBC ceased to be a private company and became a public corporation, up to the outbreak of war in 1939. The acceptance of wireless as a part of the homely background of life and the acceptance of the BBC as the ‘natural’ institution for controlling it, distinguish this period from that covered in the first volume. From 1927 to 1939 the system of public control that had evolved from the early struggles was never seriously in jeopardy and the one big official inquiry, the Ullswater Report, favoured no major constitutional changes. The main theme of the second volume, therefore, may be called the extension and the enrichment of the activity of broadcasting. Different chapters deal with the programmes and programme-makers; the listeners and the ways in which their needs were (or were not) met as the system expanded; public attitudes to the BBC and the increasing complexity of its control and organization; the coming of television and the early experiments of Baird and others; and the retirement of Sir John Reith — not only the end of a regime but the end of an era. The volume ends with preparations for war.
Jeffrey A. Auerbach
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198827375
- eISBN:
- 9780191866258
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198827375.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
Imperial Boredom offers a radical reconsideration of the British Empire during its heyday in the nineteenth century. Challenging the long-established view that the empire was about adventure and ...
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Imperial Boredom offers a radical reconsideration of the British Empire during its heyday in the nineteenth century. Challenging the long-established view that the empire was about adventure and excitement, with heroic men and intrepid women settling new lands and spreading commerce and civilization around the globe, this analysis instead argues that boredom was central to the experience of empire. It looks at what it was actually like to sail to Australia, to serve as a soldier in South Africa, or to accompany a colonial official to the hill stations of India, arguing that for numerous men and women, from governors to convicts, explorers to tourists, the Victorian empire was dull and disappointing. Drawing on diaries, letters, memoirs, and travelogues, it demonstrates that all across the empire, men and women found the landscapes monotonous, the physical and psychological distance from home debilitating, the routines of everyday life wearisome, and their work unfulfilling. Ocean voyages were tedious; colonial rule was bureaucratic; warfare was infrequent; economic opportunity was limited; and indigenous people were largely invisible. The seventeenth-century empire may have been about wonder and marvel, but the Victorian empire was a far less exciting project. Combining individual stories of pain and perseverance with broader analysis, this book traces the emergence of boredom as a human emotion, while simultaneously explaining what these expressions of boredom reveal about the British Empire.Less
Imperial Boredom offers a radical reconsideration of the British Empire during its heyday in the nineteenth century. Challenging the long-established view that the empire was about adventure and excitement, with heroic men and intrepid women settling new lands and spreading commerce and civilization around the globe, this analysis instead argues that boredom was central to the experience of empire. It looks at what it was actually like to sail to Australia, to serve as a soldier in South Africa, or to accompany a colonial official to the hill stations of India, arguing that for numerous men and women, from governors to convicts, explorers to tourists, the Victorian empire was dull and disappointing. Drawing on diaries, letters, memoirs, and travelogues, it demonstrates that all across the empire, men and women found the landscapes monotonous, the physical and psychological distance from home debilitating, the routines of everyday life wearisome, and their work unfulfilling. Ocean voyages were tedious; colonial rule was bureaucratic; warfare was infrequent; economic opportunity was limited; and indigenous people were largely invisible. The seventeenth-century empire may have been about wonder and marvel, but the Victorian empire was a far less exciting project. Combining individual stories of pain and perseverance with broader analysis, this book traces the emergence of boredom as a human emotion, while simultaneously explaining what these expressions of boredom reveal about the British Empire.
The Ages of Voluntarism
Anglo-Scottish Relations from 1603 to 1900
Anglo-Scottish Relations, from 1900 to Devolution and Beyond
Aristocratic Vice
The art of the possible
Before the Windrush
Before Wilde
Black 1919
Border Liberties and Loyalties
