Simon J. Potter
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199568963
- eISBN:
- 9780191741821
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568963.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter outlines the BBC's role in the British empire and, specifically, in a British world that encompassed Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The BBC devised an ...
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This chapter outlines the BBC's role in the British empire and, specifically, in a British world that encompassed Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The BBC devised an overseas mission for itself during a period of imperial decline, and against a background of increasing American overseas influence that resulted in fears of ‘Americanization’. The chapter examines how contemporaries hoped to harness broadcasting as a means to compensate for the loss of British overseas economic and military power. It sketches out the broader histories of imperial communication and the British world; of ideas about the BBC and Britishness; and of the concept of cultural imperialism. It relates the history of broadcasting and empire to recent historiographical debates about the impact of empire on British culture and identity.Less
This chapter outlines the BBC's role in the British empire and, specifically, in a British world that encompassed Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The BBC devised an overseas mission for itself during a period of imperial decline, and against a background of increasing American overseas influence that resulted in fears of ‘Americanization’. The chapter examines how contemporaries hoped to harness broadcasting as a means to compensate for the loss of British overseas economic and military power. It sketches out the broader histories of imperial communication and the British world; of ideas about the BBC and Britishness; and of the concept of cultural imperialism. It relates the history of broadcasting and empire to recent historiographical debates about the impact of empire on British culture and identity.
Peter J. Marshall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199640355
- eISBN:
- 9780191739279
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640355.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
After a brief restatement of arguments about transatlantic political discord but continuing links in many other respects, the Conclusion goes on to consider the state of the British empire and the ...
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After a brief restatement of arguments about transatlantic political discord but continuing links in many other respects, the Conclusion goes on to consider the state of the British empire and the American union in the ten years or so after independence. It stresses the strength of ethnic, religious or regional loyalties and the difficulties facing both the British empire and the United States in commanding allegiance. The new America had an ambitious leadership but a population whose commitment to ideals of unity was uncertain. The subjects of the British empire were given to vigorous assertions of what they saw as their rights against imperial authority and were not likely to be enthusiastic adherents to doctrines of Britishness propagated from above. The book concludes that an Atlantic world that linked peoples survived the political developments that had divided them.Less
After a brief restatement of arguments about transatlantic political discord but continuing links in many other respects, the Conclusion goes on to consider the state of the British empire and the American union in the ten years or so after independence. It stresses the strength of ethnic, religious or regional loyalties and the difficulties facing both the British empire and the United States in commanding allegiance. The new America had an ambitious leadership but a population whose commitment to ideals of unity was uncertain. The subjects of the British empire were given to vigorous assertions of what they saw as their rights against imperial authority and were not likely to be enthusiastic adherents to doctrines of Britishness propagated from above. The book concludes that an Atlantic world that linked peoples survived the political developments that had divided them.
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.
Simon J. Potter
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199568963
- eISBN:
- 9780191741821
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568963.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
During the inter-war years, BBC officers sought to encourage the spread overseas of the British approach to broadcasting, and prevent the American model of commercial network broadcasting from being ...
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During the inter-war years, BBC officers sought to encourage the spread overseas of the British approach to broadcasting, and prevent the American model of commercial network broadcasting from being adopted around the British world. This chapter examines the nature of those two models, and how hybrid versions were devised in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The chapter also looks at how the BBC sought to apply key ideas about public-service broadcasting, first developed for use at home, to its overseas operations. The role of John Reith, the BBC's first director-general, is discussed. The chapter surveys how broadcasting was organized around the British Empire during the 1920s. It analyses in detail the BBC's plans of 1929 for an empire broadcasting service, and the reasons why the Imperial Conference of 1930 refused to provide funding.Less
During the inter-war years, BBC officers sought to encourage the spread overseas of the British approach to broadcasting, and prevent the American model of commercial network broadcasting from being adopted around the British world. This chapter examines the nature of those two models, and how hybrid versions were devised in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The chapter also looks at how the BBC sought to apply key ideas about public-service broadcasting, first developed for use at home, to its overseas operations. The role of John Reith, the BBC's first director-general, is discussed. The chapter surveys how broadcasting was organized around the British Empire during the 1920s. It analyses in detail the BBC's plans of 1929 for an empire broadcasting service, and the reasons why the Imperial Conference of 1930 refused to provide funding.
Peter J. Marshall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199640355
- eISBN:
- 9780191739279
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640355.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
After explaining how the book is divided into sections, one dealing with continuing political hostility and the other with the resumption of transatlantic links, which amounted to the restoration of ...
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After explaining how the book is divided into sections, one dealing with continuing political hostility and the other with the resumption of transatlantic links, which amounted to the restoration of a British Atlantic world, the Introduction sets the scene on the British side. It describes the attitudes during the war of those who had been hostile or friendly to the American cause. It shows how many who had supported the war were ultimately willing to accept that American independence would not necessarily do irrecoverable damage to British interests, although they still remained hostile to a new America after the war. This hostility was to be enduring, while wartime professions of friendship by those who had supported the American cause had little effect on post‐war British policies towards the United States.Less
After explaining how the book is divided into sections, one dealing with continuing political hostility and the other with the resumption of transatlantic links, which amounted to the restoration of a British Atlantic world, the Introduction sets the scene on the British side. It describes the attitudes during the war of those who had been hostile or friendly to the American cause. It shows how many who had supported the war were ultimately willing to accept that American independence would not necessarily do irrecoverable damage to British interests, although they still remained hostile to a new America after the war. This hostility was to be enduring, while wartime professions of friendship by those who had supported the American cause had little effect on post‐war British policies towards the United States.
Simon J. Potter
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199265121
- eISBN:
- 9780191718427
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199265121.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were increasingly drawn together by an imperial press system. This is the first scholarly ...
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During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were increasingly drawn together by an imperial press system. This is the first scholarly study of the development of that system. Revealed to contemporaries by the South African War, the basis on which the system would develop soon became the focus for debate. Commercial organizations, including newspaper combinations and news agencies such as Reuters, fought to protect their interests, while ‘constructive imperialists’ attempted to enlist the power of the state to strengthen the system. Debate culminated in fierce controversies over state censorship and propaganda during and after the First World War. Based on extensive archival research, this study addresses crucial themes, including the impact of empire on the press, Britain's imperial experience, and the idea of a ‘British world’. Challenging earlier nationalist accounts, the author draws out the ambiguous impact of the imperial press system on local, national, and imperial identities.Less
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were increasingly drawn together by an imperial press system. This is the first scholarly study of the development of that system. Revealed to contemporaries by the South African War, the basis on which the system would develop soon became the focus for debate. Commercial organizations, including newspaper combinations and news agencies such as Reuters, fought to protect their interests, while ‘constructive imperialists’ attempted to enlist the power of the state to strengthen the system. Debate culminated in fierce controversies over state censorship and propaganda during and after the First World War. Based on extensive archival research, this study addresses crucial themes, including the impact of empire on the press, Britain's imperial experience, and the idea of a ‘British world’. Challenging earlier nationalist accounts, the author draws out the ambiguous impact of the imperial press system on local, national, and imperial identities.
Barry Crosbie and Mark Hampton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097898
- eISBN:
- 9781526104403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097898.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter introduces the main historiographic themes of the book. It makes a case for understanding the British world system not merely as a contingent series of migrations, economic exchanges, ...
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This chapter introduces the main historiographic themes of the book. It makes a case for understanding the British world system not merely as a contingent series of migrations, economic exchanges, alliances, and military relationships, but also as an arena in which various cultural interchanges took place. These connections—which included literary criticism, humanitarianism, legal cultures, political thought, travel narratives, material culture, and attitudes toward capitalism—helped to cement a “cultural British world” that transcended the frontiers between formal and informal empire, and between empire, metropole, and the wider world.Less
This chapter introduces the main historiographic themes of the book. It makes a case for understanding the British world system not merely as a contingent series of migrations, economic exchanges, alliances, and military relationships, but also as an arena in which various cultural interchanges took place. These connections—which included literary criticism, humanitarianism, legal cultures, political thought, travel narratives, material culture, and attitudes toward capitalism—helped to cement a “cultural British world” that transcended the frontiers between formal and informal empire, and between empire, metropole, and the wider world.
Anne Spry Rush
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199588558
- eISBN:
- 9780191728990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588558.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter opens with an overview of the nature of middle-class West Indian understandings of Britishness, and suggests the impact of Caribbean British identity on West Indian societies in the ...
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This chapter opens with an overview of the nature of middle-class West Indian understandings of Britishness, and suggests the impact of Caribbean British identity on West Indian societies in the twentieth-century colonial period. West Indians’ idea of Britishness, which combined a focus on respectability with expectations of racial and geographical inclusiveness, allowed them to form strong bonds with native Britons (persons born and bred in the British Isles) and create a place for themselves in the colonial world. As empire declined they would struggle to unravel Caribbean society from the Britishness they considered a vital part of their own identity. This introduction explores these ideas in the context of recent literature on the British World, colonial Caribbean society, decolonization, and the meaning of imperial culture, outlines the geographical and analytical parameters of the book, and provides working definitions of significant terms used in the text.Less
This chapter opens with an overview of the nature of middle-class West Indian understandings of Britishness, and suggests the impact of Caribbean British identity on West Indian societies in the twentieth-century colonial period. West Indians’ idea of Britishness, which combined a focus on respectability with expectations of racial and geographical inclusiveness, allowed them to form strong bonds with native Britons (persons born and bred in the British Isles) and create a place for themselves in the colonial world. As empire declined they would struggle to unravel Caribbean society from the Britishness they considered a vital part of their own identity. This introduction explores these ideas in the context of recent literature on the British World, colonial Caribbean society, decolonization, and the meaning of imperial culture, outlines the geographical and analytical parameters of the book, and provides working definitions of significant terms used in the text.
David Thackeray
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198816713
- eISBN:
- 9780191858345
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198816713.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Economic History
Forging a British World of Trade explores the politics of culture, ethnicity, and market in the Empire-Commonwealth between the 1880s and 1970s, focusing on efforts to promote an economic system ...
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Forging a British World of Trade explores the politics of culture, ethnicity, and market in the Empire-Commonwealth between the 1880s and 1970s, focusing on efforts to promote an economic system centred on trade between the UK and the old Commonwealth. This chapter situates the themes of the study within the existing historiography on British World networks. In recent years British World studies have received significant criticism both for the focus of their research and its absences. A key part of the problem here is that studies of the British World too often neglect key questions of uneven cultural and power relations. No one idea about the optimal future of British World collaboration was ever hegemonic. We should not discard the British World as a category of analysis, but rather explore how British World economic networks competed over time with alternative national, regional, and international ideas of trade community.Less
Forging a British World of Trade explores the politics of culture, ethnicity, and market in the Empire-Commonwealth between the 1880s and 1970s, focusing on efforts to promote an economic system centred on trade between the UK and the old Commonwealth. This chapter situates the themes of the study within the existing historiography on British World networks. In recent years British World studies have received significant criticism both for the focus of their research and its absences. A key part of the problem here is that studies of the British World too often neglect key questions of uneven cultural and power relations. No one idea about the optimal future of British World collaboration was ever hegemonic. We should not discard the British World as a category of analysis, but rather explore how British World economic networks competed over time with alternative national, regional, and international ideas of trade community.
Barry Crosbie and Mark Hampton (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097898
- eISBN:
- 9781526104403
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097898.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This book collects eleven original essays in the cultural history of the British Empire since the eighteenth century. It is geographically capacious, taking in the United Kingdom, India, West Africa, ...
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This book collects eleven original essays in the cultural history of the British Empire since the eighteenth century. It is geographically capacious, taking in the United Kingdom, India, West Africa, Hong Kong, and Australia, as well as sites of informal British influence such as the Ottoman Empire and southern China. The book considers the ways in which British culture circulated within what John Darwin has called the British “world system”. In this, the book builds on existing imperial scholarship while innovating in several ways: it focuses on the movement of ideas and cultural praxis, whereas Darwin has focused mostly on imperial structures —financial, demographic, and military. The book examines the transmission, reception, and adaptation of British culture in the Metropole, the empire and informal colonial spaces, whereas many recent scholars have considered British imperial influence on the Metropole alone. It examines Britain's Atlantic and Asian imperial experiences from the eighteenth to the twentieth century together. Through focusing on political ideology, literary movements, material culture, marriage, and the construction of national identities, the essays demonstrate the salience of culture in making a “British World”.Less
This book collects eleven original essays in the cultural history of the British Empire since the eighteenth century. It is geographically capacious, taking in the United Kingdom, India, West Africa, Hong Kong, and Australia, as well as sites of informal British influence such as the Ottoman Empire and southern China. The book considers the ways in which British culture circulated within what John Darwin has called the British “world system”. In this, the book builds on existing imperial scholarship while innovating in several ways: it focuses on the movement of ideas and cultural praxis, whereas Darwin has focused mostly on imperial structures —financial, demographic, and military. The book examines the transmission, reception, and adaptation of British culture in the Metropole, the empire and informal colonial spaces, whereas many recent scholars have considered British imperial influence on the Metropole alone. It examines Britain's Atlantic and Asian imperial experiences from the eighteenth to the twentieth century together. Through focusing on political ideology, literary movements, material culture, marriage, and the construction of national identities, the essays demonstrate the salience of culture in making a “British World”.
Amanda E. Herbert
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780300177404
- eISBN:
- 9780300199253
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300177404.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, cultural, economic, and political changes, as well as increased geographic mobility, placed strains upon British society. But by cultivating ...
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In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, cultural, economic, and political changes, as well as increased geographic mobility, placed strains upon British society. But by cultivating friendships and alliances, women worked to socially cohere Britain and its colonies. Presenting an historical study of female friendship and alliance for the early modern period, this book draws on a series of interlocking microhistorical studies to demonstrate the vitality and importance of bonds formed between British women in the long eighteenth century. It shows that while these alliances were central to women's lives, they were also instrumental in building the British Atlantic world.Less
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, cultural, economic, and political changes, as well as increased geographic mobility, placed strains upon British society. But by cultivating friendships and alliances, women worked to socially cohere Britain and its colonies. Presenting an historical study of female friendship and alliance for the early modern period, this book draws on a series of interlocking microhistorical studies to demonstrate the vitality and importance of bonds formed between British women in the long eighteenth century. It shows that while these alliances were central to women's lives, they were also instrumental in building the British Atlantic world.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804759458
- eISBN:
- 9780804775878
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804759458.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter argues for the integration of Chinese ways of seeing nature into conceptions of the British natural world, and charts the ways that improved conditions of plant exchange changed the ...
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This chapter argues for the integration of Chinese ways of seeing nature into conceptions of the British natural world, and charts the ways that improved conditions of plant exchange changed the British conception of the native and natural more generally. This increased ability to transplant Chinese specimens to the British landscape paralleled a shift in the theoretical conception of the British garden. During the eighteenth century, British gardening style depended on Chinese influence enough to be termed jardin anglo-chinois by European observers. But by the mid-nineteenth century, despite the greatly increased presence of Chinese plants such as rhododendrons and azaleas in the British landscape, British garden designers insisted on the native inspiration of their forms. The chapter links a deepening British mistrust of the visual effects used by the Chinese in creating their gardens to a broader British disavowal of the influence of Chinese landscape design. In rejecting the obfuscations of Chinese designs, however, British writers affirmed those designs' grounding logic: that stylized landscape systems relayed real information about a country's political liberties.Less
This chapter argues for the integration of Chinese ways of seeing nature into conceptions of the British natural world, and charts the ways that improved conditions of plant exchange changed the British conception of the native and natural more generally. This increased ability to transplant Chinese specimens to the British landscape paralleled a shift in the theoretical conception of the British garden. During the eighteenth century, British gardening style depended on Chinese influence enough to be termed jardin anglo-chinois by European observers. But by the mid-nineteenth century, despite the greatly increased presence of Chinese plants such as rhododendrons and azaleas in the British landscape, British garden designers insisted on the native inspiration of their forms. The chapter links a deepening British mistrust of the visual effects used by the Chinese in creating their gardens to a broader British disavowal of the influence of Chinese landscape design. In rejecting the obfuscations of Chinese designs, however, British writers affirmed those designs' grounding logic: that stylized landscape systems relayed real information about a country's political liberties.
Anne Spry Rush
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199588558
- eISBN:
- 9780191728990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588558.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This concluding chapter considers how West Indian understandings of Britishness, as well as the institutional and migratory pathways through which they were reinforced, may have influenced both ...
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This concluding chapter considers how West Indian understandings of Britishness, as well as the institutional and migratory pathways through which they were reinforced, may have influenced both Britain and the Caribbean in the post-colonial era. It suggests that continuing bonds between Caribbean peoples and native Britons had an important and complex impact on the newly constituted independent societies in the Caribbean as well as on post-war domestic British culture. It comments on related literature on colonial relationships to Britishness, particularly that dealing with the concept of respectability as developed by colonials of color in other parts the British World. It encourages further explorations of British identity amongst these peoples, as well as amongst white West Indians and the working classes in the context of British royalty, generational and ethnic factors, the English language, and religion.Less
This concluding chapter considers how West Indian understandings of Britishness, as well as the institutional and migratory pathways through which they were reinforced, may have influenced both Britain and the Caribbean in the post-colonial era. It suggests that continuing bonds between Caribbean peoples and native Britons had an important and complex impact on the newly constituted independent societies in the Caribbean as well as on post-war domestic British culture. It comments on related literature on colonial relationships to Britishness, particularly that dealing with the concept of respectability as developed by colonials of color in other parts the British World. It encourages further explorations of British identity amongst these peoples, as well as amongst white West Indians and the working classes in the context of British royalty, generational and ethnic factors, the English language, and religion.
David Thackeray
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198816713
- eISBN:
- 9780191858345
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198816713.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Economic History
Brexit is likely to lead to the largest shift in Britain’s economic orientation in living memory. Some have argued that leaving the EU will enable Britain to revive markets in Commonwealth countries ...
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Brexit is likely to lead to the largest shift in Britain’s economic orientation in living memory. Some have argued that leaving the EU will enable Britain to revive markets in Commonwealth countries with which it has long-standing historical ties. Their opponents argue that such claims are based on forms of imperial nostalgia which ignore the often uncomfortable historical trade relations between Britain and these countries, as well as the UK’s historical role as a global, rather than chiefly imperial, economy. This book explores how efforts to promote a ‘British World’ system, centred on promoting trade between Britain and the Dominions, grew and declined in influence between the 1880s and 1970s. At the beginning of the twentieth century many people from London, to Sydney, Auckland, and Toronto considered themselves to belong to culturally British nations. British politicians and business leaders invested significant resources in promoting trade with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa out of a perception that these were great markets of the future. However, ideas about promoting trade between ‘British’ peoples were racially exclusive. From the 1920s onwards colonized and decolonizing populations questioned and challenged the bases of British World networks, making use of alternative forms of international collaboration promoted firstly by the League of Nations and then by the United Nations. Schemes for imperial collaboration amongst ethnically ‘British’ peoples were hollowed out by the actions of a variety of political and business leaders across Asia and Africa who reshaped the functions and identity of the Commonwealth.Less
Brexit is likely to lead to the largest shift in Britain’s economic orientation in living memory. Some have argued that leaving the EU will enable Britain to revive markets in Commonwealth countries with which it has long-standing historical ties. Their opponents argue that such claims are based on forms of imperial nostalgia which ignore the often uncomfortable historical trade relations between Britain and these countries, as well as the UK’s historical role as a global, rather than chiefly imperial, economy. This book explores how efforts to promote a ‘British World’ system, centred on promoting trade between Britain and the Dominions, grew and declined in influence between the 1880s and 1970s. At the beginning of the twentieth century many people from London, to Sydney, Auckland, and Toronto considered themselves to belong to culturally British nations. British politicians and business leaders invested significant resources in promoting trade with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa out of a perception that these were great markets of the future. However, ideas about promoting trade between ‘British’ peoples were racially exclusive. From the 1920s onwards colonized and decolonizing populations questioned and challenged the bases of British World networks, making use of alternative forms of international collaboration promoted firstly by the League of Nations and then by the United Nations. Schemes for imperial collaboration amongst ethnically ‘British’ peoples were hollowed out by the actions of a variety of political and business leaders across Asia and Africa who reshaped the functions and identity of the Commonwealth.
Charles V. Reed
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097010
- eISBN:
- 9781526109699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097010.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
Chapter three examines how colonial settlers imagined their relationships with a British ‘homeland’ and a larger British world. By examining the robust English-language print cultures in South Africa ...
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Chapter three examines how colonial settlers imagined their relationships with a British ‘homeland’ and a larger British world. By examining the robust English-language print cultures in South Africa and New Zealand, the chapter explores how colonial settlers used the forum of the royal tour to self-fashion communal mythologies and identities in the languages of Britishness and imperial citizenship not only in individual colonies – in New Zealand or the Cape Colony – but also in provincial and urban cores – in the Eastern Cape or Dunedin, for instance. While the royal tours were used by colonial officials and local elites as instruments of propaganda and social control, colonial subjects in the empire often used the languages of Britishness and imperial citizenship to protest injustices, whether local or imperial, or to challenge racial or ethnic determinism.Less
Chapter three examines how colonial settlers imagined their relationships with a British ‘homeland’ and a larger British world. By examining the robust English-language print cultures in South Africa and New Zealand, the chapter explores how colonial settlers used the forum of the royal tour to self-fashion communal mythologies and identities in the languages of Britishness and imperial citizenship not only in individual colonies – in New Zealand or the Cape Colony – but also in provincial and urban cores – in the Eastern Cape or Dunedin, for instance. While the royal tours were used by colonial officials and local elites as instruments of propaganda and social control, colonial subjects in the empire often used the languages of Britishness and imperial citizenship to protest injustices, whether local or imperial, or to challenge racial or ethnic determinism.
Catherine Ladds
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719085482
- eISBN:
- 9781781704974
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085482.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter presents an overview of the history of the Chinese Customs Service and its relationship to foreign and Chinese power. Drawing on existing literature on the Customs Service and on the ...
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This chapter presents an overview of the history of the Chinese Customs Service and its relationship to foreign and Chinese power. Drawing on existing literature on the Customs Service and on the history of expatriate communities, this chapter discusses the Customs's role in the development of imperialism in China. In doing so it explores the murky distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ empire. In the course of this discussion it surveys the literature on imperial networks, colonial migration, the British world and globalisation. This chapter argues that historians should reposition China as an important node in the transnational webs of commerce, travel and communication that crisscrossed the empire world.Less
This chapter presents an overview of the history of the Chinese Customs Service and its relationship to foreign and Chinese power. Drawing on existing literature on the Customs Service and on the history of expatriate communities, this chapter discusses the Customs's role in the development of imperialism in China. In doing so it explores the murky distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ empire. In the course of this discussion it surveys the literature on imperial networks, colonial migration, the British world and globalisation. This chapter argues that historians should reposition China as an important node in the transnational webs of commerce, travel and communication that crisscrossed the empire world.
Ryan A. Vieira
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198737544
- eISBN:
- 9780191800962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737544.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Political History
This chapter situates the emergence of a modern understanding of parliament within the context of, what historians call, the British World. It argues that a desire amongst British colonists to adopt ...
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This chapter situates the emergence of a modern understanding of parliament within the context of, what historians call, the British World. It argues that a desire amongst British colonists to adopt Westminster-style parliaments in the colonies gave the issue of parliamentary inefficiency a transnational significance. The rapid population and economic growth that characterized these imperial locations from the mid-nineteenth century accentuated the slowness of the ‘ancient rules’ of parliamentary law-making and an imperial network of news and newspapers circulated throughout the Empire the complaints over parliamentary inefficiency that were emerging in Britain. Colonists thus came to see the deficiencies of their own legislatures as part of a wider political problem within the British World.Less
This chapter situates the emergence of a modern understanding of parliament within the context of, what historians call, the British World. It argues that a desire amongst British colonists to adopt Westminster-style parliaments in the colonies gave the issue of parliamentary inefficiency a transnational significance. The rapid population and economic growth that characterized these imperial locations from the mid-nineteenth century accentuated the slowness of the ‘ancient rules’ of parliamentary law-making and an imperial network of news and newspapers circulated throughout the Empire the complaints over parliamentary inefficiency that were emerging in Britain. Colonists thus came to see the deficiencies of their own legislatures as part of a wider political problem within the British World.
Ryan A. Vieira
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198737544
- eISBN:
- 9780191800962
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737544.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Political History
This book is a cultural and transnational history of modern procedural reform in the Westminster parliamentary system. The book centres on the nineteenth-century emergence of a desire to modernize ...
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This book is a cultural and transnational history of modern procedural reform in the Westminster parliamentary system. The book centres on the nineteenth-century emergence of a desire to modernize and make more efficient the procedural rules of parliamentary law-making. Contrary to existing interpretations, which see that history as a product of transformations in political structure and practice, this book demonstrates how the evolution of Parliament’s rules was structured by transformations within the wider culture of time. The spread of an increasingly rigorous time discipline in concert with a growing consciousness of being modern, this book argues, worked to progressively erode the legitimacy of the historically developed rules of parliamentary debate and law-making while simultaneously implanting new ways of judging the effectiveness of parliamentary institutions. By the 1880s, this process had transformed efficiency into the ultimate criterion of parliamentary effectiveness. Using the conceptual framework of the British World, the book then demonstrates how this new understanding of parliamentary effectiveness was exported to the colonies of settlement through a series of communicative networks and provided colonial parliamentarians with the ability to imagine the inefficiencies of their own legislatures as part of a larger transnational problem.Less
This book is a cultural and transnational history of modern procedural reform in the Westminster parliamentary system. The book centres on the nineteenth-century emergence of a desire to modernize and make more efficient the procedural rules of parliamentary law-making. Contrary to existing interpretations, which see that history as a product of transformations in political structure and practice, this book demonstrates how the evolution of Parliament’s rules was structured by transformations within the wider culture of time. The spread of an increasingly rigorous time discipline in concert with a growing consciousness of being modern, this book argues, worked to progressively erode the legitimacy of the historically developed rules of parliamentary debate and law-making while simultaneously implanting new ways of judging the effectiveness of parliamentary institutions. By the 1880s, this process had transformed efficiency into the ultimate criterion of parliamentary effectiveness. Using the conceptual framework of the British World, the book then demonstrates how this new understanding of parliamentary effectiveness was exported to the colonies of settlement through a series of communicative networks and provided colonial parliamentarians with the ability to imagine the inefficiencies of their own legislatures as part of a larger transnational problem.
Amanda B. Moniz
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190240356
- eISBN:
- 9780190240387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190240356.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century, British and Irish Early Modern History
The study opens with an overview of transatlantic missionary and educational charities from the early 1700s through the early 1760s. Members of the British Atlantic community tightened their bonds ...
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The study opens with an overview of transatlantic missionary and educational charities from the early 1700s through the early 1760s. Members of the British Atlantic community tightened their bonds through a broad range of projects, such as the missions of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge and the Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge and English Language among the German Immigrants in Pennsylvania, designed to strengthen the empire. In addition, British Americans integrated the colonies’ urban charitable infrastructures more closely with Britain’s as they set up hospitals, ethnic-aid societies, and other charities, and they contributed to British projects such as the Marine Society. This chapter explains the centrality of political and economic integration, imperial and religious rivalry, and international Protestantism to charitable developments on both sides of the Atlantic. It also explains eighteenth-century ideas about sympathy and moral responsibility that made aiding strangers a fraught issue.Less
The study opens with an overview of transatlantic missionary and educational charities from the early 1700s through the early 1760s. Members of the British Atlantic community tightened their bonds through a broad range of projects, such as the missions of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge and the Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge and English Language among the German Immigrants in Pennsylvania, designed to strengthen the empire. In addition, British Americans integrated the colonies’ urban charitable infrastructures more closely with Britain’s as they set up hospitals, ethnic-aid societies, and other charities, and they contributed to British projects such as the Marine Society. This chapter explains the centrality of political and economic integration, imperial and religious rivalry, and international Protestantism to charitable developments on both sides of the Atlantic. It also explains eighteenth-century ideas about sympathy and moral responsibility that made aiding strangers a fraught issue.
Tobias Harper
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- February 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198841180
- eISBN:
- 9780191876714
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198841180.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter examines the creation of new orders at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was the culmination of a prolonged period of “unprecedented honorific inventiveness” starting in the ...
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This chapter examines the creation of new orders at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was the culmination of a prolonged period of “unprecedented honorific inventiveness” starting in the late nineteenth century. In Britain the new Order of the British Empire was branded the “Order of Britain’s Democracy” in recognition of the fact that it extended far deeper into non-elite classes in British society than any previous honour. Between 1917 and 1921 more than 20,000 people in Britain and throughout the British Empire were added to this new Order. This was an unprecedented number, orders of magnitude larger than honours lists in previous years. While the new Order was successful in reaching a wider, more middle-class audience than the honours system before the war, which was socially narrow, there was a substantial backlash to what was widely perceived by elites to be an excessive (and diluting) opening-up of the “fount of honour.” This backlash was connected to political controversies about the sale of honours that eventually helped bring about Lloyd George’s downfall. This chapter also contains a brief description of all the components of the British honours system at the beginning of the twentieth century.Less
This chapter examines the creation of new orders at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was the culmination of a prolonged period of “unprecedented honorific inventiveness” starting in the late nineteenth century. In Britain the new Order of the British Empire was branded the “Order of Britain’s Democracy” in recognition of the fact that it extended far deeper into non-elite classes in British society than any previous honour. Between 1917 and 1921 more than 20,000 people in Britain and throughout the British Empire were added to this new Order. This was an unprecedented number, orders of magnitude larger than honours lists in previous years. While the new Order was successful in reaching a wider, more middle-class audience than the honours system before the war, which was socially narrow, there was a substantial backlash to what was widely perceived by elites to be an excessive (and diluting) opening-up of the “fount of honour.” This backlash was connected to political controversies about the sale of honours that eventually helped bring about Lloyd George’s downfall. This chapter also contains a brief description of all the components of the British honours system at the beginning of the twentieth century.
