The British Empire: A History and a Debate

270 Pages·2015·1.376 MB·English

by  Black, Jeremy

The British Empire
A History and a Debate
Jeremy Black
The BriTish empire
For
Mary Quicke and Tom Langdon-Davies
The British empire
A history and a Debate
Jeremy BlAck
University of Exeter, UK
© Jeremy Black 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Jeremy Black has asserted his right under the copyright, Designs and patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the author of this work.
published by
Ashgate publishing limited Ashgate publishing company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Black, Jeremy, 1955-
The British empire : a history and a debate / by Jeremy Black.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBN 978-1-4724-5966-4 (hardcover) -- isBN 978-1-4724-5967-1 (ebook) -- isBN 978-1-
4724-5968-8 (epub) 1. Great Britain--colonies--history. 2. commonwealth countries--history.
3. imperialism--history. i. Title.
DA16.B576 2015
909.09'71241--dc23
2015009327
isBN 9781472459664 (hbk)
isBN 9781472459671 (ebk – pDF)
isBN 9781472459688 (ebk – epUB)
printed in the United kingdom by henry ling limited,
at the Dorset press, Dorchester, DT1 1hD
Contents
Preface vii
List of Abbreviations ix
1 Debating Empire 1
2 The British Empire to 1700 31
3 The Eighteenth-Century Empire 71
4 The Nineteenth-Century Empire 107
5 The British Empire, 1900–1945 147
6 From World War Two to the Present 183
7 Britain and America: Parallels and Contrasts 215
8 Competing Histories and the British Empire 227
9 Conclusions 243
Select Bibliography 251
Index 253
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Preface
What was the course and consequence of the British Empire? The rights and
wrongs, strengths and weaknesses of empire are a major topic in global history,
and deservedly so. The topic links the historical accounts of, and from, former
colonies with those of the former imperial metropoles (homelands). This book
focuses on the most prominent and wide-ranging empire in world history, the
British empire. It does so not only in order to provide a history of that empire,
but also so as to provide a perspective from which to consider the issues of
strengths and weaknesses, and rights and wrongs, and how they are debated
today. In short, this is history both as the past and as the present-day discussion
of the past, and with the political dimension of the latter engaged with explicitly.
This approach also offers a way to consider the empires of other states and, in
particular, to assess the parallels and contrasts between the British and American
empires, which provide the subject of Chapter 7. Moreover, debate over empire
has become more common because of questions about the situation in many
states today. Discussion over historical empires is in part a reflection of the
consideration of contemporary states, notably their weaknesses.
This book therefore seeks to weave together an overview of the British
empire, across the centuries, with a considered commentary on both the
public historiography of empire and the politically charged character of
much discussion of it. There is a coverage here of social as well as political and
economic dimensions of empire, and both the British perspective and that of
the colonies is considered. The role of both practicalities (such as strategic and
commercial issues) and values as important forces of imperialism is emphasised.
The chronological dimension is set by the need to consider not only imperial
expansion by the British state, but also the history of Britain within an imperial
context. As such, this is a story of empires within the British Isles, Europe,
and, later, world-wide. It shows Britain as a colony, part of an empire, or as an
empire, from its earliest history. It covers Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon England,
medieval imperial expansion, colonisation in the British Isles and later across
the oceans, through to the heyday of empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The book follows with global decline, decolonisation, and the
complex nature of post-colonialism and different imperial activity in modern
viii The British Empire
and contemporary history. The approach is revisionist. There is no automatic
assumption that imperialism, empire, and colonialism were ‘bad’ things. Instead,
there is a dispassionate and evidence-based evaluation of the British empire as a
form of government, an economic system, and a method of engagement with
the world, one with both faults and benefits for the metropole and the colony.
This book draws both on my own research, notably as seen with The British
Seaborne Empire (2004), and on the work of others. The strength of scholarship,
both British and non-British, on the history of the British empire is notable, and
I would like to pay tribute to the work of many other academics. Throughout,
it has proved helpful and stimulating. The range, scale, and quality of the
scholarship is truly impressive. If I have only had space to engage with a portion
of this scholarship, that is a reflection of the range of what I have had to cover
and of the historiographical focus being on popular and public history, and not
its academic counterpart. I would like to thank Jerry Bannister, Bill Gibson, John
Griffiths, Will Hay, Kwasi Kwarteng, Luigi Loreto, Marc-William Palen, Murray
Pittock, Kaushik Roy, Tony Stockwell, Richard Toye, and an anonymous reader
for commenting on all or part of an earlier version. They are not responsible for
any remaining errors and do not necessarily agree with particular assessments.
I would also like to thank Michael Mosbacher of the Social Affairs Unit for
allowing me to use material from a publication for that Unit. An exemplary
publisher, Tom Gray has proved most helpful with this book. This book benefits
greatly from the opportunity to teach for the Medieval and Early Modern first-
year Introductory World History course at the University of Exeter and its
Modern first-year counterpart in 2013–15. I have also benefited, while working
on this book, from invitations to speak at Mary Washington University, William
Paterson University, the Sorbonne, the University of Rheims, the Seconda
Università di Napoli, and the Catholic University of Portugal.
I would like to thank all those who have provided opportunities to visit parts
of the one-time empire, formal or otherwise, from Belize and Raritan to the
Andaman Islands and Tasmania; from Chennai and Singapore to Palmerston
Island and Beveridge Reef. I am delighted to dedicate this book to two good
Devon friends who are tremendous fun and also shrewdly sensitive about
people. I have benefited greatly from both aspects of their friendship.
List of Abbreviations
Add. Additional manuscripts
BL. London, British Library, Department of Manuscripts
CAB. Cabinet Papers
NA. London, National Archives, formerly Public Record Office
UN United Nations