British Surrenders and the South African War, 1899–1902

Based on primary research, this article examines more than 1000 cases of surrender in the British Army during the South African War, 1899–1902. It concludes that the majority of surrenders were caused by five conditions: faulty leadership, the removal of effective leadership through injury or death, lack of necessary supplies, decisive disadvantage in terms of numbers and the use of questionable tactics by the enemy. An examination of surrender gives insight into morale, resource allocation, discipline, decision-making and military law.     

British Jobs for British Workers? Negotiating Work,Nation, and Globalisation through the Lindsey Oil Refinery Disputes

This paper explores the relationships between labour organising, globalisation and national identity through an engagement with the 2009 Lindsey Oil Refinery strikes. Some strikers adopted the controversial slogan ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ in response to employers' attempts to undercut existing wages and conditions with a new migrant workforce. This led to accusations of xenophobia. We make three inter‐related arguments. First, we contend that it is necessary to interrogate the spatialised power relations generated through particular forms of labour agency enacted in relation to globalising processes. Second, since these responses can be politically ambiguous, success in territorially based disputes does not always equate with broader (transnational) class agency. Third, relevant to the project of labour geography, we propose that labour scholars and activists be more attuned to the mundane ambiguities in labour agency, and the subsequent need to frame local action within a broader relational politics of global labour solidarity.     

Missionaries,Evangelical Identity,and the Religious Ecology of Early Nineteenth‐Century South Carolina and the British Caribbean

This article examines a critical question that fraught contemporaries throughout the Atlantic system in the early nineteenth century: could slavery be ameliorated and, thus, by implication, could slaves be ‘improved’? Despite strong eighteenth‐century connections through trade and as provincial outposts of the British Empire, South Carolina and the British Caribbean differed markedly on this issue by the early 1800s. But the reasons for this divergence cannot be adequately explained by the effects of the American Revolution. South Carolina slaveholders believed that slavery could be ameliorated through the adoption of evangelicalism. West Indian proprietors, however, believed that the introduction of evangelical religion among their slaves would only incite them to rebel. Thus, evangelical missionaries were often crucial figures in defining the character of slaveholding societies in South Carolina and the West Indies. These missionaries illustrated South Carolinians' paternalistic, benevolent sense of a permanent slave society, while itinerants in the West Indies described a violent, lawless, and temporary society beyond the pale of British standards of civility and humanitarianism.     

Cocaine and the British Empire: The Drug and the Diplomats at the Hague Opium Conference, 1911–12

This article will consider the reasons for the inclusion of cocaine in the Hague Opium Convention of 1912. This was the first time that the emerging international drugs regulatory system considered substances other than opiates and it was British delegates who took the initiative to include cocaine in discussions and in the final version of the agreement. Historians have tended to keep brief their accounts of this episode, seeing the British agenda on cocaine as driven primarily by their wider interests in opium, or alluding briefly to colonial anxieties about manufactured drugs. This article returns to the events of 1911–12 and argues that Britain's position on cocaine deserves greater attention. It shows that British administrations in Asia had tried to control a growing market there for the drug since the turn of the century, and that their efforts had failed. In exploring the history of these efforts, and their impacts in the early days of the international narcotics-control regime, the article suggests that imperial policies are more complex than many historians have previously acknowledged, and that it may be time for fresh thinking on the relationship between empires and drugs in modern Asia.     

Subjects or Citizens? India,Pakistan and the 1948 British Nationality Act

Independence in the case of British India occurred at relatively short notice in August 1947, but tying up the loose ends of empire stretched over years. Under these circumstances, the realignment of subjecthood and citizenship necessitated by decolonisation was protracted, and raised complex questions about identity in both the new states of India and Pakistan and the former imperial power itself. This article thus takes as its focus the drawn-out process of disengagement that followed formal independence in relation to one case study: the various ways in which Britain sought to square the working of its 1948 Nationality Act with Indian and Pakistani citizenship legislation that took shape in the 1950s. India and Pakistan faced the common challenge of establishing who now belonged within their new borders. Britain likewise was forced to recalibrate its ideas about nationality and think afresh about the rights of its subjects in view of the new sets of relationships that now linked colonies, old dominions and the ‘mother country’ within the Commonwealth. In practice, applying the 1948 Act's provisions in relation to India and Pakistan became infused with anxieties about ‘race’, which surfaced repeatedly as British officials in London, Delhi, Karachi and consulates around the world sought to manage its operation to suit British interests.     

Youthful escapes? British students,overseas education and the pursuit of happiness

This paper draws upon the findings of a recent project examining the motivations of UK students seeking higher education overseas. We argue that notions of fun, enjoyment and the pursuit of happiness abroad featured strongly in young people's stories, in contrast to an emphasis in recent academic and media accounts on overt strategising around educational decision making. Several students wanted to escape the UK, particularly the rigidity of British higher education; the perceived flexibility of a liberal arts education was extremely appealing. Others saw education overseas as a chance for personal reinvention. Moving the focus away from stressing the negative effects of academic-related pressures upon young people, in this paper, we argue that education can offer up new possibilities for fun and excitement, which for privileged individuals work alongside more strategic objectives around the accumulation of cultural capital.     

Colonial Rule,Cultural Relations and the British Council in Cyprus, 1935–55

ABSTRACT

This article offers an examination of the British Council’s early stages of expansion in Cyprus under British rule, from 1935 to 1955, before the start of the Greek Cypriot anti-colonial struggle (1955–59). It argues that the British Council’s development and quality of activities in the British colony were affected by various factors such as the peculiar political difficulties encountered in the island due to the rise of Greek nationalism and the growing influence of the Church of Cyprus over the local public; the mismanagement of the local British Institutes by some of the Council’s representatives; and the financial stringencies hindering the Council’s ambitions. Through the investigation of primary material, accessed at the Cyprus State Archive in Nicosia (Cyprus) and at the National Archives in London (UK), the article traces and critically analyses for the first time the Council’s early steps in colonial cultural policy-making, using Cyprus as a case study. During the 20-year period under examination, British experiments in culture attempted to attract the Cypriots’ interest and convince them of the importance of the British connection. The British and colonial governments envisaged that through cultural influence they could safeguard the consent of the governed. In this way, British presence in Cyprus could be retained and Britain would be able to protect its strategic, political and economic interests in the region. However, research reveals that the Council’s efforts in the colony were more often than not misguided, its activities proving ineffective, its hopes misplaced. Although the aspiration was that the British Council should be a powerful instrument of Britain’s foreign policy in the colonies, this article shows that in Cyprus it had a tumultuous childhood. Caught up in the realities of the Second World War, the rise of nationalism, the thread of communism, and amid the climate of Cold War, the British Empire was coming at an end, while the British Council was fighting to survive.     

British Diplomacy,Propaganda, and War Strategy and the Hungarian-Romanian Dispute over Transylvania in 1939–40

Abstract

Between 1914 and 1935, the cities of Vienna and Pressburg/Bratislava were linked by an electric railway known as the Pressburgerbahn. More than just a line of transportation, the railway became intertwined with the complex politics of identity in Pressburg. The Pressburgerbahn presented nationalists in the Habsburg Empire with a dilemma: it had the potential to contribute to the unification of the nation, but at the same time was transnational by definition. This paradox generated a heated controversy about the Pressburgerbahn between Magyar nationalists and the predominantly German-speaking Pressburg bourgeoisie. Using biologized rhetoric, Hungarian politicians and journalists portrayed their nation as a body politic that was disfigured by having a railway ‘vein’ cross the border into Austria, in particular from such a peripheral location as Pressburg. By contrast, the discourse of the German-speaking bourgeoisie was firmly anchored in an imperial, supra-ethnic landscape. This controversy was replayed following the incorporation of the renamed city of Bratislava into Czechoslovakia in 1919: the Prague-based Ministry of Railways employed the rhetoric of the railway as an integrating structure within the body politic, while the eventual closure of the Pressburgerbahn in 1935 was closely connected to the belated nationalization of Bratislava. The railway to Vienna thus became a symbol of the liminal status of the town as a whole, in terms of nation, geography, politics and culture.     

The Holocaust and the birth of Israel in British,Swedish and Finnish press discourse, 1947–1948

This article examines the way in which the Holocaust was linked to the process of the birth of Israel between 1947 and 1948 in the mainstream British, Swedish and Finnish press. By utilising a framework of comparative cultural history, this essay seeks to understand why different countries responded to the suffering of the Jews during the Second World War in such diverse ways. This essay also seeks to question the popular belief that the two events were intimately linked, and that the link was recognised in a straightforward manner. Hence, the study argues that although the press coverage sometimes managed to establish the connection between the two events, more typically the news was domesticated. In other words, the news had a transcendental and meta-historical character, working as an extension to each country's own self-understanding of Jews, Zionism and the Holocaust.     

‘‘This Secret Town’: British Intelligence,the Special Relationship,and the Vietnam War’

This article seeks to revise our understanding of Cold War intelligence as a practice. The conventional view is that Britain's MI6 waged a battle in the shadows consisting of espionage and covert action. However, a number of MI6 officers operated as observers, conducting what we might call ‘intelligence without espionage’. The dual identity of these officers raises important questions about how intelligence operated in the blurred space between traditional diplomacy and human espionage using agents. Using the case of MI6 officers in the British Consulate-General in Hanoi between 1965 and 1972, this article explores how a dual identity provided alternative means of acquiring intelligence within a highly secure state that exhibited remarkable paranoia about foreign spies. Furthermore, the United States lacked diplomatic representation in Hanoi and so the British Consulate provided a remarkable window for Western intelligence on the effect of ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’, Lyndon Johnson's escalating air campaign against North Vietnam. Both Johnson and Harold Wilson were avid readers of this material. Accordingly, in the context of the Cold War intelligence partnership between the UK and US, the consulate in Hanoi was an example of the ‘inverse’ special relationship, in which Britain enjoyed unique value.     

Anglo-Iranian Treaty Negotiations: Reza Shah,Teymurtash and the British Government, 1927–32

From 1927 to 1932, wide-reaching negotiations took place between Reza Shah's court minister, ‘Abdolhossein Khan Teymurtash, and the British Legation in Tehran, the aim of which was to resolve all outstanding issues and to normalize relations between the two countries on the basis of a general treaty. This article examines these Anglo-Iranian negotiations with a particular focus on the thorniest issues—Iran's territorial claims in the Persian Gulf, particularly its claims to sovereignty over Bahrain, Abu Musa and the two Tunb islands. Though an agreement was never reached, an examination of the content and conduct of these negotiations offers some valuable insights into the unique features of Iranian nationalism and Iranian ambitions in the Persian Gulf during the Reza Shah period.     

Communications,Qajar irredentism,and the strategies of British India: The Makran Coast telegraph and British policy of containing Persia in the east (Baluchistan)—Part I

Qajar irredentism brought Persia to make some advances in Baluchistan in the 1830s and 1840s, but in early 1860s, the continuation of this advance was threatened by one of Britain's main imperial interests and needs: the Indo-European telegraph line, which was to cross the Makran Coast overland. Persia sought to use this need for getting British recognition for its claims over Baluchistan. This put the British under pressure, for they did not wish to alienate Persia, through whose territories the line was to pass. The British government tried to appease the Persians with a simple declaration that the telegraph would not affect their claims and by taking the telegraph away from disputed territories. One major thing was faulty in this “solution,” for it was the British who decided which territories were “disputed” or “undisputed,” not the Persians.     

Journeys to Empire: Enlightenment,Imperialism, and the British Encounter with Tibet, 1774–1904

The English by Geoffrey Elton. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Pp. xiii + 248, 37 plates, 8 figures. £19.99 (hardback). ISBN 0–631–17681–0.

Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 by Linda Colley. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. x + 429, illustrations. £19.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–300–05737–7.

Myths of the English edited by Roy Porter. Oxford: Polity Press, 1992. Pp. xii + 276. £39.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–7456–08442.

The Tudor Navy: An Administrative, Political and Military History by David Loades. (Studies in Naval History) Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992. Pp. x + 317, maps. £35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–85967–922–5.

The Armada of Flanders: Spanish Maritime Policy and European War, 1568–1668 by R.A. Stradling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xx + 276, maps. £35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–40534–3.

Parameters of British Naval Power 1650–1850 edited by Michael Duffy. Exeter Maritime Studies, Number Seven. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1992. Pp. vi + 144. £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–85989–385–5.

The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History by Sanjay Subrahmanyam. London and New York: Longman, 1992. Pp. xiii + 320, maps, tables. £14.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–582–05068–5.

Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640 by James C. Boyajian. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii + 356, maps, tables. £40.50 (hardback). ISBN 0–8018–4405–3.

A World on the Move: The Portuguese in Africa, Asia, and America, 1415–1808 by A.J.R. Russell‐Wood. Manchester: Carcanet, 1992. Pp. xiv + 230, maps, tables, illustrations. £30.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–85635–994–7.

The Spanish Frontier in North America by David J. Weber. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. xx + 579, maps and illustrations. $40.00; £20. ISBN 0–300–05198–0.

The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity from 1492 to 1800 by Jack P. Greene. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Pp.xiv + 216, illustrations. $32.95. ISBN 0–8078–2097–0.

Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740–1800 by Alan L. Karras. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992. Pp. xv + 231. $37.95. ISBN 0–8014–2691‐X.

Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People, Volume 1, From Aboriginal Times to the End of Slavery by Michael Craton and Gail Saunders. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Pp. xxiii + 455, maps, illustrations. $60.00. ISBN 0–8203–1382–3.

Making the Empire Work: London and American Interest Groups 1690 to 1790 by Alison Gilbert Olson. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 261. £31.95. ISBN 0–674–54318–1.

The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific by Gananath Obeyesekere. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii + 251. ISBN 0–691–05680–3.

Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780–1870 by Clare Midgley. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. Pp. xii + 281, illustrations. £37.50. ISBN 0–415–06669–7.

Religion and Society in Post‐Emancipation Jamaica by Robert J. Stewart. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. Pp. xxi + 254, maps and illustrations. $42.50 (hardback); $19.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–87049–749–9.

Poverty Abounding Charity Aplenty: The Charity Network in Colonial Victoria by R.A. Cage. Sydney: Hale &; Iremonger, 1992. Pp. 190. $A35 (hardback); $A17.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–86806–437–8; 0–86806–438–6.

Muslims and Missionaries in Pre‐Mutiny India by Avril Ann Powell. London: Curzon Press, 1993. pp. ix + 339, maps. £30. ISBN 0–7007–021–5.

The Light of Nature and the Law of God: Antislavery in Ontario 1833–1877 by Allen P. Stouffer. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1992. Pp. xvi + 273. $34.95 (hardback). ISBN 0–7735–0918–6.

Science and the Canadian Arctic: A Century of Exploration 1818–1918 by Trevor H. Levere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv + 438, map, illustrations and photographs. £40.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–41933–6.

The Voyages of the Discovery: The Illustrated History of Scott's Ship by Ann Savours. London: Virgin, 1992. Pp. xvi + 384, maps, illustrations. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN 1–852227–117–5.

People and Empires in African History; Essays in Memory of Michael Crowder edited by J.F. Ade Ajayi and J.D.Y. Peel. London: Longman, 1992. Pp. xxv + 254, maps. £36.00. ISBN 0–582–08997–2.

Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa's Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People by Noël Mostert. London: Jonathan Cape, 1992. Pp. xxix + 1,355, maps. £25 (hardback). ISBN 0–224–03325–5.

Occasional Papers on the Irish in South Africa by Donald H. Akenson. Grahams‐town: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Occasional Papers Series, 1991. Pp. 95, figures and tables. R22. ISBN 0–86810–202–5.

The Irish in Southern Africa 1795–1910 edited by Donal P. McCracken. Durban: University of Durban‐Westville, 1992. Pp. 290, maps, tables and illustrations.

Threads of Solidarity: Women in South African Industry, 1900–1980 by Iris Berger. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press; London: James Currey, 1992. Pp. xiv + 369. £35 (hardback); £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–8525–5078–2; 0–8525–5077–4.

The Scattering Time: Turkana Responses to Colonial Rule by John Lamphear. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. xxiii + 308, maps. £ 40.00. ISBN 019–820226–1.

Strike Across the Empire: The Seamen's Strike of 1925 in Britain, South African and Australasia by Baruch Hirson and Lorraine Vivian. London: Clio Publications, 1992. Pp. v + 117. £5.0 (paperback). ISBN 1–897640–00–5.

National Crisis and National Government: British Politics, the Economy and Empire, 1926–1932 by Philip Williamson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xvii + 569. £60. ISBN 0–521–36137–0.

Trade, Tariffs and Empire: Lancashire and British Policy in India 1919–1939 by Basudev Chatterji. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 521. Rs. 610; £25.00. ISBN 0–19–562815–2.

The Mystic Life of Alfred Deakin by Al Gabay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. 208. £30.00 (hardback). ISBN 0–521–41494–6.

Woman Suffrage in Australia: A Gift or a Struggle? by Audrey Oldfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv + 263. £35.00 (hardback); £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0–521–40380–4; 0–521–4361–7.

Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People by Judith Brett. London: Macmillan, 1993. Pp. xi + 318. £14.99. ISBN 333–592–859.

L'Afrique noire française: l'heure des Indépendances edited by Charles‐Robert Ageron and Marc Michel. Paris: CNRS Editions, 1992. Pp. 728.

The Internationalization of Colonialism: Britain, France, and Black Africa, 1939–1956 by John Kent. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. viii + 365. £45. ISBN 0–19–820302–0.

The Political Inheritance of Pakistan edited by D.A. Low. London: Macmillan, 1992. Pp. vii + 292. £45 (hardback). ISBN 0–333–524373.

Broken Waves: A History of the Fiji Islands in the Twentieth Century by Brij V. Lai. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. Pp. xxii + 404, maps, tables, illustrations. $38.00. ISBN 0–8248–1418–5.