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The British Empire in Tropical Africa: A Review of the Literature to the 1960s

A. D. Roberts

in The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume V: Historiography

It was only in the 1890s, when the Scramble was in its last stages, that a literature on the British past in tropical Africa began to emerge. For most of the 19th century, British tropical Africa ... More

It was only in the 1890s, when the Scramble was in its last stages, that a literature on the British past in tropical Africa began to emerge. For most of the 19th century, British tropical Africa seemed a small subject, and attracted little retrospective consideration. An outgrowth of two related trends in historiography around 1900 is shown in this chapter. By the Second World War, a beginning had been made in the academic study of British expansion in 19th-century tropical Africa. Two seasoned historians had turned their attention to the recent economic history of tropical Africa. After the war, various factors combined to stimulate research into the history of tropical Africa. The history of British tropical Africa was no longer the preserve of a few eccentrics; it was a fast-expanding field of debate and diversification. In the course of the 1960s, the institutional underpinnings of African studies continued to be strengthened. In 1967, the normal closed period for British public records was reduced from fifty to thirty years; it thus became possible to study metropolitan files for the inter-war period during which British rule in Africa seemed most entrenched.Less

An Imperial Laboratory: Scientific Societies, Geopolitics, and Territorial Acquisitions

in Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950

This chapter addresses the multifaceted preoccupations of geographical societies and the field expeditions they sponsored in tropical Africa, showing the longevity of concern for the development of ... More

This chapter addresses the multifaceted preoccupations of geographical societies and the field expeditions they sponsored in tropical Africa, showing the longevity of concern for the development of Africa and the integral part scientists played in forming its epistemological content. It is believed that naturalists and scientists of all sorts would be important players in the “opening up” of Africa. Complicating the inherent tensions between multinational and national rights was the problem of how to set limits on geographical expeditions and scientific activities. The national jealousies and the impetus to seize lands that British officials had feared soon materialized. The African Society's objective to assess “indigenous” culture and institutions would thus help to “disperse many errors and dispel many illusions”.Less

The Dissolution of the British Empire  

WM. ROGER LOUIS

in The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume IV: The Twentieth Century

This chapter presents a discussion on the dissolution of the British Empire. In particular, it deals with the critical cases of India, Palestine, Burma, Ceylon, Egypt, the Sudan, Malaya, the West ... More

This chapter presents a discussion on the dissolution of the British Empire. In particular, it deals with the critical cases of India, Palestine, Burma, Ceylon, Egypt, the Sudan, Malaya, the West Indies, and tropical Africa. Above all, it explains how the initial phase of disengagement, presided over by Clement Attlee, eventually found its culmination in the era of liquidation dominated by Harold Macmillan. There were three main periods. The first was that of the Labour government, 1945–51; the second that of the Tory governments of Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Anthony Eden, 1951–7; and the third that of Macmillan from 1957. The immediate causes of the end of the British Empire are to be found not only in the nationalist movements in Empire itself but also in the lessons learned from the Algerian revolution and in the danger of Soviet intervention in the Congo. It is shown that the international climate expedited the advance to independence, but the circumstances varied from region to region, from colony to colony.Less

‘Much More than an Organization to Prevent War’: Beyond the Guarantee of Peace, 1917–1918

Peter J. Yearwood

in Guarantee of Peace: The League of Nations in British Policy 1914-1925

The league idea developed in several new directions in 1917–18. Some close to Lloyd George, like Philip Kerr and Maurice Hankey, envisaged an active organization with a powerful secretariat which ... More

The league idea developed in several new directions in 1917–18. Some close to Lloyd George, like Philip Kerr and Maurice Hankey, envisaged an active organization with a powerful secretariat which might resolve the underlying problems which led to war. This was linked to the possibility of threatening Germany with exclusion from the inter‐Allied bodies which would control economic resources in the reconstruction period, an idea which alarmed Wilson and led him to refuse to discuss league plans with London. Others such as Jan Smuts developed plans for the internationalization of tropical Africa. London began to place the league idea at the centre of its propaganda, and was particularly concerned with the development of Labour and socialist thinking, which strikingly paralleled its own. Nevertheless, the new ideas were meant to complement, not replace, the older idea of a guarantee. Following an initiative by Robert Cecil at the Foreign Office, this was worked out in some detailed by the Phillimore Committee.Less

A Living Laboratory: Ethnosciences, Field Sciences, and the Problem of Epistemic Pluralism

in Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950

This chapter explores how European rule affected tropical Africa and how African experiences shaped key elements of the modern world. Tropical Africa has served as a key site in which to work out a ... More

This chapter explores how European rule affected tropical Africa and how African experiences shaped key elements of the modern world. Tropical Africa has served as a key site in which to work out a scientific discourse of complexity, interrelations, and interdependence, concepts that were at the heart of governmental and development interventions. The patterns in colonialism, power, domination, hegemony, and violence that have been revealed in this book are extremely important and should never be discounted. The book has also opened a range of new questions about the history of science in colonial Africa and about the link between ethnosciences and field sciences. The proof of the importance of “traditional knowledge” normally arrives from the sciences themselves and usually has something to do with how well this knowledge works in the real world.Less

Introduction: A Golden Pendulum

Parker Shipton

in Credit Between Cultures: Farmers, Financiers, and Misunderstanding in Africa

This chapter introduces the main study of this book, which focuses on the efforts of Luo-speaking people and others in Kenya to make sense of, and cope with, foreign interventions in the form of ... More

This chapter introduces the main study of this book, which focuses on the efforts of Luo-speaking people and others in Kenya to make sense of, and cope with, foreign interventions in the form of credit. It discusses how by both insiders' and outsiders' judgments, tropical Africa, and western Kenya within it, are short of capital for agriculture and other productive uses. The chapter reveals that credit has been a standard response of international aid agencies to reports of declines in Africa's per capita agricultural production or rises in its population. It has come by itself or tied together with training, extension, marketing infrastructure, pricing interventions, conditional requirements about exchange rates, and free emergency relief. However, the philosophy, language, and career incentives of aid officials have been geared to the idea that poor people and countries must borrow.Less