The Politics of Citizenship in 1940s Britain: The British Nationality Act

The article examines the enactment of the British NationalityAct, 1948. The legislation created a legal status—Citizenshipof the UK and Colonies—that included Britons and ‘colonial’British subjects under a single definition of British citizenship,and entrenched their right to enter the UK. Between 1948 and1962, some 500, 000 non-white British subjects entered underthe legislation, despite documented evidence of elite suspicionof non-white Commonwealth migration. The article argues thatthis apparent contradiction can only be understood by examiningthe legislation in the context of past migration patterns andBritain's international position in 1948. The legislation wasonly marginally related to migration; it was rather an attemptto maintain a uniform definition of subjecthood in the faceof Canada's unilateral introduction of its own citizenship,and it was an affirmation of Britain's place as head of a Commonwealthstructure founded on the relationship between the UK and theOld Dominions. ^* For comments on earlier drafts, I owe my thanks to John Dorwin,Katie Goebs, Iain McLean, and Desmond King.     

Ireland in the imperial imagination: British nationalism and the Anglo-Irish Treaty

ABSTRACT

The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921 was a watershed moment in modern Irish history. In addition to copper-fastening the partition of the island, the agreement catalysed the bifurcation of revolutionary Sinn Féin and set in train the processes that culminated, ultimately, in the outbreak of a bitter Civil War the following June. The events that led to the Treaty and the debates on it in Dáil Éireann have received extensive treatment from historians. However, scholars have paid far less attention to the impact of the Treaty on British politics; in particular, they have neglected to explore how the concession of limited Irish self-government impacted Britain’s national self-image at a time of crucial imperial adjustment following the Great War. This article will examine the range of arguments proffered for and against the Treaty in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and suggest that Parliamentary opposition to the settlement was underpinned by a sense of imperial-national feeling, one guided by an attitude of conscious superiority to non-British elements that can be understood productively as a form of British nationalism.     

The empire unpossess'd: An essay on Gibbon's decline and fall

In an essay on Nietzsche's view of morality written in 1891, Eduard von Hartmann suggested that Nietzsche's most important contribution to philosophy was in the sphere of ethics; at the same time, he drew attention to the affinity between Nietzsche's ideas and the philosophy of Max Stirner. Hartmann's remarks open up Nietzsche's philosophy to examination in terms of a radically materialist framework. Nietzsche sees the ethics of asceticism, and hence Christianity, as a consequence of metaphysical dualism (which his materialist monism rejects), a stance which enables him to advance a positive, because physiologically based, sexual ethics. His philosophy proposes a profound and instrinsic relationship between the sexual and the aesthetic. This article shows how an appreciation of the radical materialism advanced by Nietzsche serves as evidence of the relevance of his philosophy to contemporary concerns and debates in ethics, and explores Nietzsche's ethical programme to develop ‘a more Goethean attitude toward sensuality’.     

The Awkward Squad: Arts Graduates from British Tropical Africa Before 1940

ABSTRACT

Before the Second World War, most Africans from British Tropical Africa who studied abroad were seeking qualifications in three professions: law, medicine and the Church. In all these, they could be reasonably sure of employment on their return. True, government employment was problematic, but law and medicine did offer the alternative – often more lucrative – of private practice. Much more threatening to colonial authority were arts students: those who read philosophy, literature, politics or sociology. This article focuses on several men who graduated in Britain or the USA: Kobina Sekyi, J.B. Danquah, James Aggrey, Bankole Awoonor-Renner (Gold Coast); Eyo Ita, Nathaniel Fadipe, Nnamdi Azikiwe – and his (mostly Igbo) protégés (Nigeria); Hosea Nyabongo, Balamu Mukasa, Ernest Kalibala (Uganda); Peter Koinange (Kenya). It concludes by surveying the career of Nicholas Ballanta-Taylor (Sierra Leone), who studied music in New York and in 1927 won a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation for musicological research in Africa. Of these pioneer African Africanists, four wrote successful doctoral theses, Azikiwe published an academic study. Aggrey and Fadipe died prematurely. Danquah applied his intellect to essentially non-academic pursuits. Ballanta, worked as a practical musician in the 1930s, but his African research remains virtually unpublished.     

Defence and Diplomacy: The British Foreign Office and Singapore, 1939-1940

Examinations of the defence of Singapore normally focus on therole the Royal Navy and antipodean cries of betrayal. In suchstudies, great attention is paid to such matters as how longit would take the Royal Navy to relieve Singapore and the degreeto which the British government misled Australia, New Zealand,and Singapore itself with regard to London's determination todefend the fortress. This study concentrates instead on Britishdiplomacy in the Far East, and contends that Britain intendedto defend its position in the region by means of creating theimpression in Tokyo that Japan faced a loose Anglo-Americancoalition opposed to any Japanese expansionist efforts. In asimilar fashion, the British attempted also to utilize Soviet–Japanesehostility to protect their interests in the Far East. By lookingat these matters, a greater understanding of the wider aspectsof British strategic defence policy can be found.     

论战后初期英国对欧政策的形成

长期以来,战后英国第一届艾德礼工党内阁的对欧政策受到人们的批评,他们指责它在战后初期欧洲联合的过程中态度消极,以致使英国从一开始就失去了领导欧洲的机会。这种评价近年来受到一些学者的挑战,他们认为,在１９４５年后的二三年中,英国对欧洲合作远非是消极的,...     

Cosmopolitan nationalism and the cultural reach of the white British

ABSTRACT. In recent years, strong claims have been made for the breakdown of national boundaries and the reformation of national identities in an increasingly interconnected global world – driven in large part by the possibilities and limitations that emerge from an increasingly global media world. It has been argued that new postnational, cosmopolitan subjectivities accompany, enable and feed off globally oriented forms of cultural consumption. This article examines these claims in the light of unusually comprehensive data on the tastes of the white British population collected in a large national sample survey, in‐depth interviews and focus groups. By identifying and analysing the geographical spread of the cultural referents of the tastes of the white British we make an empirical assessment of the claims for cosmopolitan identities. We argue that if white British identities are being reformed by processes of globalisation it is, paradoxically, in an increasingly Anglophone direction.     

Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism: Indian American advocacy organisations

Studies of the homeland-oriented activism of diasporic groups focus on cases where those who share national origins also share common political interests. But other literature indicates that ethnic majority and minority groups may have different attitudes towards their homelands. This paper examines how majority and minority religious status in the homeland affects the foreign policy activism of immigrant organisations. It also examines how competing groups mobilising around foreign policy concerns frame their issues in such a way as to resonate with their Western audiences. Using examples of the mobilisation of Indian American groups around religious issues in India, it demonstrates that there are fundamental differences in the concerns and goals of Hindu American organisations and those representing Muslims, Sikhs and Christian Americans of Indian ancestry. These differences often result in opposing patterns of mobilisation around homeland issues.     

Gender, nature, empire: women naturalists in nineteenth century British travel literature

Among the many British women abroad in the late nineteenth century were a number of travellers who toured the American West with a naturalist's pen and sketchbook. California, with its giant sequoias and redwoods, scenic Yosemite Valley and Sierra Nevada, and the Mediterranean flora of the southern coasts, especially attracted travellers with a naturalist orientation. We examine the botanical and naturalist writings and art of two well-known (and well-heeled) world travellers – Constance Gordon Cumming and Marianne North – and another more obscure British aristocrat, Theodora Guest, sister of the Duke of Westminster, who travelled in California in the late nineteenth century. We examine relationships among these elite women's association with the Romantic aesthetic and naturalist traditions, natural sciences, class-based associations between women and flowers, and emergent environmentalism. The works of these women indicate the process by which natural history rhetorics and styles became embedded within gender, class, and imperial relations; and how the division of natural history into professional and amateur domains relegated women to discursive margins.