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

by Brown, Judith M.; Louis, Wm. Roger

• ISBN13: 9780198205647
• ISBN10: 0198205643
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. From the founding of colonies in North America and the West Indies in the seventeenth century to the reversion of Hong Kong toChina at the end of the twentieth, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. The Oxford History of the British Empire as a comprehensive study helps us to understand the end of Empire in relation to its beginning, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as for therulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history. This twentieth-century volume considers many aspects of the 'imperial experience' in the final years of the British Empire, culminating in the mid-century's rapid processes of decolonization. It seeks to understand the men who managed the empire, their priorities and vision, and the mechanisms ofcontrol and connection which held the empire together. There are chapters on imperial centres, on the geographical 'periphery' of empire, and on all its connecting mechanisms, including institutions and the flow of people, money, goods, and services. The volume also explores the experience of'imperial subjects' in terms of culture, politics, and economics; an experience which culminated in the growth of vibrant, often new, national identities and movements and, ultimately, new nation-states. It concludes with the processes of decolonization which reshaped the political map of the latetwentieth-century world.

Author Biography

Judith Brown is Beit Professor of Commonwealth History, and Fellow of Balliol College, at Oxford University. Wm. Roger Louis is Kerr Professor of English History and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	xvii
List of Figures	xviii
List of Tables	xix
Abbreviations and Location of Manuscript Sources	xxi
List of Contributors	xxii
Introduction	1	(46)
Wm. Roger Louis
The British Empire in the Edwardian Era	47	(17)
Ronald Hyam
A Third British Empire? The Dominion Idea in Imperial Politics	64	(24)
John Darwin
The Metropolitan Economics of Empire	88	(26)
D.K. Fieldhouse
The British Empire and the Great War, 1914--1918	114	(24)
Robert Holland
Ireland and the Empire-Commonwealth, 1900--1948	138	(25)
Deirdre McMahon
Migrants and Settlers	163	(25)
Stephen Constantine
Critics of Empire in Britain	188	(24)
Nicholas Owen
The Popular Culture of Empire in Britain	212	(20)
John M. MacKenzie
Colonial Rule	232	(23)
John W. Cell
Bureaucracy and 'Trusteeship' in the Colonial Empire	255	(25)
Ronald Hyam
'Deceptive Might': Imperial Defence and Security, 1900--1968	280	(26)
Anthony Clayton
The Second World War	306	(23)
Keith Jeffery
The Dissolution of the British Empire	329	(28)
Wm. Roger Louis
Imperialism and After: The Economy of the Empire on the Periphery	357	(22)
B.R. Tomlinson
Gender in the British Empire	379	(19)
Rosalind O'Hanlon
The British Empire and the Muslim World	398	(23)
Francis Robinson
India	421	(26)
Judith M. Brown
Ceylon	447	(18)
S.R. Ashton
Imperialism and Nationalism in South-East Asia	465	(25)
A. J. Stockwell
Britain's Informal Empire in the Middle East	490	(25)
Glen Balfour-Paul
West Africa	515	(15)
Toyin Falola
A. D. Roberts
East Africa	530	(15)
John Lonsdale
Southern Africa	545	(29)
Shula Marks
Canada, the North Atlantic Triangle, and the Empire	574	(23)
David MacKenzie
The British Caribbean from Demobilization to Constitutional Decolonization	597	(26)
Howard Johnson
Latin America	623	(20)
Alan Knight
China	643	(24)
Jurgen Osterhammel
Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands	667	(26)
W. David Mclntyre
Commonwealth Legacy	693	(10)
W. David Mclntyre
Epilogue	703	(9)
Judith M. Brown
Chronology	712	(29)
Index	741