The British Empire and revolutionary national poetry

ABSTRACT. The British empire set off an explosion of poetry, in English and native languages, particularly in India, Africa and the Middle East. This poetry – largely neglected in the scholarship on nationalism – was often revolutionary both aesthetically and politically, expressing a spirit of cultural independence. Attacks on England and the empire are common not just in native colonial poetry but also in poetry of the British isles. This article discusses some of the most influential poets, including: Shawqi of Egypt, Tagore of India, Rusafi of Iraq, Yeats of Ireland, Iqbal of Pakistan, Greenberg of pre‐State Israel, and Kipling, the ‘poet of empire’. In contrast with other empires, many poets were inspired by British culture to create revolutionary art and seek political independence. Most strikingly, British rule was instrumental in the revival of vernacular Hebrew poetry after 1917 as the centre of Hebrew literature shifted from Odessa to Tel Aviv.     

The Challenge to ‘Informal’ Empire: Argentina,Chile and British Policy-Makers in the Immediate Aftermath of the First World War

From the late nineteenth century, both Argentina and Chile were integral parts of Britain’s ‘informal’ empire in Latin America. It has been suggested by historians that this ‘informal empire’ came to an end around the mid-twentieth century. By analysing contemporary sources from within the British government and the findings of later economic historians, it is the purpose of this article to contest this viewpoint. It will instead argue that the end of ‘informal’ empire in these countries was a direct consequence of the First World War, and that the decline in British influence in the region was registered by British policy-makers much earlier than has previously been argued.     

Stumbling towards Empire: The Shanghai Local Post Office,the Transnational British Community and Informal Empire in China, 1863–97

In the second half of nineteenth century, a small transnational British and foreign community grew up in the treaty ports scattered along China’s coast, a community literally caught between the great inner Asian empire of the Manchu Qing and British-dominated informal empire in Asia. Although scholars often contend that few major developments occurred in the foreign sector of the treaty port world until the very end of the nineteenth century, this article joins recent revisionist scholarship seeking to better understand the growth of this transnational treaty port community through a study of the Shanghai Municipal Council’s local post office in the context of informal empire prior to the rise of muscular Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century.

As an institutional history of the virtually unknown local post office, this article is a study of the decades-long process by which the foreign settler community of Shanghai slowly built up the administrative capacity, trading networks and communications infrastructure of informal empire and semi-colonial order in the nineteenth-century treaty ports. The history of the local post office is largely unknown not because of its insignificance, but because we have not paid enough attention to the institutions that facilitated the emergence of transnational expatriate and settler communities throughout the world of British informal empire and the global and local influences that shaped them.     

Making Headway: The Introduction of Western Civilization in Colonial Northern Nigeria

This article scrutinises attempts by the British Foreign and Colonial Office to control information in its colonies between 1946 and 1950. Several factors combined to alter the ground on which colonial officials operated in this period: an emerging ‘Cold War’ between Britain and its wartime Soviet ally, international debates about creating an enforceable catalogue of ‘human rights' and a heightened emphasis on public relations within British colonies as a strategy for imperial governance. These factors converged in the response of colonial officials to the writing of one of the most notorious anti-colonial activists in Britain at the time, George Padmore. By analysing British Colonial Office reports of Soviet propaganda in their colonies, the article suggests new analysis about some of the ways in which the rhetoric of the Cold War impacted on Britain's approach to empire after the Second World War.     

A Victorian Embarrassment: Consular Jurisdiction and the Evils of Extraterritoriality

In 1856, the Treaty of Paris nominally welcomed the Ottoman Empire into the Concert of Europe, but this exposed a deep fault line in international relations. Although the gesture implied full sovereign rights, it seemed incompatible with the extraterritorial privileges held by Europeans in Ottoman lands under the age-old capitulations. New commercial treaties complicated the issue by extending similar privileges to British subjects as far afield as China, Siam and Japan. Consular jurisdiction soon became the focus of controversy in Westminster as extraterritoriality featured prominently in local disputes following British commercial expansion across Asia, among them the Arrow incident that led to the Second Opium War. In Japan and other states, it would also become a key grievance in popular campaigns against ‘unequal treaties’ and the injustices of informal empire. This analysis shows how, even before such narratives of resistance emerged, there was already a seam of ambivalence in Victorian political discourse on the question of extraterritoriality. In the Foreign Office, it came as no surprise to be told of defects in these treaties, but it was the context of the existing debate, notably fresh initiatives to set up mixed courts, that framed the British response.     

Book reviews

International Relations theory Legitimacy in international society. By Ian Clark. International society and its critics. Edited by Alex J. Bellamy. Negotiated revolutions: the Czech Republic, South Africa and Chile. By George Lawson. International law and organization The impact of international law on international cooperation: theoretical perspectives. Edited by Eyal Benvenisti and Moshe Hirsch. Foreign relations Strategic partners: Russian‐Chinese relations in the post‐Soviet era. By Jeanne L. Wilson. Conflict, security and armed forces International governance of war‐torn territories: rule and reconstruction. By Richard Caplan. Enforcing the peace: learning from the imperial past. By Kimberly Zisk Marten. Politics, democracy and social affairs War and the American presidency. By Arthur M. Schlesinger. The accidental American: Tony Blair and the presidency. By James Naughtie. Al‐Jazeera: how Arab TV news challenged the world. By Hugh Miles. History Constructing the U.S. rapprochement with China, 1961–1974: from red menace to tacit ally. By Evelyn Goh. Histories of the hanged: Britain's dirty war in Kenya and the end of the empire. By David Anderson. The lion and the springbok: Britain and South Africa since the Boer War. By Ronald Hyam and Peter Henshaw. Hindu rulers, Muslim subjects: Islam, rights and the history of Kashmir. By Mridu Rai. British documents on the end of empire. East of Suez and the Commonwealth, 1964–1971. Part I: East of Suez. Edited by S. R. Ashton and Wm. Roger Louis. British documents on the end of empire. East of Suez and the Commonwealth, 1964–1971. Part II: Europe, Rhodesia, Commonwealth. Edited by S. R. Ashton and Wm. Roger Louis. British documents on the end of empire. East of Suez and the Commonwealth, 1964–1971. Part III: Dependent territories, Africa, economics, race. Edited by S. R. Ashton and Wm. Roger Louis. Europe The EU, NATO and the integration of Europe: rules and rhetoric. By Frank Schimmelfennig. Theft of a nation: Romania since communism. By Tom Gallagher. Russia and the former Soviet republics Russia in the 21st century: the prodigal superpower. By Steven Rosefielde. Russian military reform: 1992–2002. Edited by Anne C. Aldis and Roger N. McDermott. Central Asia and the Caucasus: transnationalism and diaspora. Edited by Touraj Atabaki and Sanjyot Mehendale. Middle East and North Africa International relations of the Middle East. Edited by Louise Fawcett. Iran, Iraq, and the legacies of war. Edited by Lawrence G. Potter and Gary G. Sick. Asia and Pacific Exit the dragon? Privatization and state control in China. Edited by Stephen Green and Guy S. Liu. North America The new American empire: a 21st‐century teach‐in on US foreign policy. Edited by Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young. Latin America and Caribbean Bananas and business: the United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899–2000. By Marcelo Bucheli. The strategic dynamics of Latin American trade. Edited by Vinod K. Aggarwal, Ralph H. Espach and Joseph S. Tulchin. America's other war: terrorizing Colombia. By Doug Stokes.     

The Training of Secret Police in Conflictual Intelligence Cultures: British Failure in the Middle East during the Cold War

This article explores the nature of security training chiefly associated with MI5. It shows that, akin to the security training implemented throughout the colonies, policy-makers in London hoped to strengthen Middle Eastern security services via British training, which would safeguard British interests in the region. This article argues that an unintended consequence was that strengthening Middle Eastern security services became part of the problem rather than the solution. The policy served mainly to bolster increasingly unpopular, authoritarian regimes against a rising tide of anti-British sentiment. Thus, British foreign, more specifically anti-Communist, policy in the Middle East was short-sighted and a failure.     

‘England Failed to do her Duty towards Them’: The India Office and Pauper Indians in the Metropole, 1857–1914

This article examines how the India Office handled cases of destitute Indians, such as sailors and servants, who were stranded in Britain. The empire provided opportunities for work and travel, yet there were no securities for those who were taken advantage of by the system. This article highlights how the India Office was the institution expected to help distressed Indians and yet the secretary of state for India consistently refused to accept official responsibility for them. Nor did the British government try to prevent the problem from occurring in the first place. Instead, the official position taken by the secretary of state for India was to let social institutions intervene, arguing that, as British subjects, Indians could receive relief through the Poor Laws. Workhouses, however, were ill suited to Indians striving to return to their homes. This article addresses these issues through examining three key periods: the early to mid-nineteenth century; a shift in the 1880s when the India Office acknowledged a better policy was needed for the treatment of destitute Indians; and, the turn of the century when a Committee on Distressed Colonial and Indian Subjects was established in 1909. Through a focused study of India Office discourses, this article addresses the ambiguity of imperial policy and assesses how it contributed to competing understandings of British responsibility over imperial subjects.     

The Shipping Conference System,Empire and Local Protest in Singapore, 1910–1911

This article analyses local opposition in Singapore in 1910–11 to the shipping conference system and the responses of a powerful group of British shipowners and the Colonial Office. The conference, a cartel agreed among shipowners, divided monopoly profits among its members and a small group of London-based merchant houses. We suggest that the concerns of Singapore anti-conference protestors, backed by the governor of the Straits Settlements, counted for little in official London circles when weighed against the vital role of shipping in the British Empire. Even in 1967 the strength of the empire and British shipping was still apparent when the Singapore government refused to support local mercantile opposition to the Far Eastern Freight Conference.     

Bridgeheads, ‘Colonial Places’ and the Queensland Financial Crisis of 1866

This article provides a new perspective on the links between British imperialism and metropolitan finance by showing how formal power reinforced ‘money power’ at a formative stage in the political development of the colony of Queensland. In 1866, despite the contraction of the bridgeheads of formal British authority in eastern Australia, local imperial representatives quickly aligned with private interests when British investments appeared to be threatened by a proposal to introduce a fiduciary note issue. Subsequently, Queensland politicians continued to contest the control of money and the scope of government intervention in the colonial economy. Ultimately, however, the inflow of British capital created new bridgeheads of British power in Queensland, re-constituting it as a ‘colonial place’ in the informal empire of investment and influence.     

The Imperialism of Internment: Boer Prisoners of War in India and Civic Reconstruction in Southern Africa, 1899–1905

During the course of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, over 9,000 captured Boers were sent abroad to India as prisoners of war. Using hitherto unexamined sources, this article explores how, during their internment and repatriation, British officials and administrators across the empire collaborated in a concerted attempt to transform the imperial enemy into colonial collaborator. This involved a necessarily intercolonial effort to conduct a successful programme of ‘re-education’ capable of cultivating ‘white’ British virtues in preparing Boer POWs for their future rights and duties in reconstructing Southern Africa upon their repatriation. In so doing, the government of India and other colonial officials across the empire thus recapitulated their ideal of Britain’s imperial project in the Boer POW camps. Highlighting the intercoloniality of this process, India’s viceroy, Lord George Curzon, played as prominent a role as did the War Office, or South Africa’s soon-to-be pro-consul, Lord Alfred Milner. The microcosmic imperialism of Boer internment thus reveals a great deal about the nature and structure of power within the British Empire, and emphasises the value of an intercolonial or transcolonial perspective in examining the complex, global consequences of the Anglo-Boer War.     

Imperial Outposts and the War Beyond: Singapore,Hong Kong and the British Empire’s Land Force Contribution to the Korean War

Histories of the British Empire’s strategic outposts in the Far East have traditionally focused on their traumatic loss to the Japanese adversary during the Second World War. Only in the past decade-and-a-half have historians begun to examine the post-Second World War importance of these outposts to the continued defence and security of Britain’s empire in the Far East. In taking this line of historical enquiry still further, the article examines how Singapore and Hong Kong were used to project British military power, specifically army deployments, across the Far East, and far beyond the imperial frontier, in support of Britain’s involvement in the 1950–53 Korean War and therefore in pursuit of the empire’s foreign and defence policy objectives. It adopts an essentially operational analysis to this end, relying on operational and army ‘ground-level’ sources from the records of the Colonial, Foreign, and War Offices at the British National Archives. It uncovers the hidden workings of the mechanisms of imperial military power projection through strategic outposts, which ranged from training to logistical support to the exercise of command and control, and how these mechanisms and outposts were utilised by the British Far Eastern land forces involved in the Korean War. In so doing, the article sheds much valuable and original light on the historical importance of these strategic outposts to imperial defence.     

The politics of the Balfour Declaration: Nationalism,imperialism and the limits of Zionist-British cooperation

This article proposes a new perspective on the much debated question of why the British government published the Balfour Declaration? It argues that the Declaration was published as part of the struggle that took place in the course of the First World War between two rival factions in the British government on the question of the future of the Ottoman Empire: the “radical” faction that strove to partition the Ottoman Empire as a means to extend the British imperial hold on the Middle East, and the “reformist” faction that opposed this. By promising to turn Palestine into “a national home for the Jewish people” the Declaration advanced the radical agenda of dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and expansion of British imperialism in the Middle East.     

The China of Tomorrow: Japan and the Limits of Victorian Expansion

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the literature on the mechanisms, rhetoric, and limits of mid-Victorian expansion by asking how far late Tokugawa Japan was subject to forms of British imperialism. In September 1862 a British merchant was murdered on the high road between Edo and Kyoto; a year later, a British fleet bombarded Kagoshima in retaliation. By engaging with John Darwin’s concept of the ‘bridgehead’, this article examines the circumstances in which a lonely death on the frontiers of British commerce could be transformed into a Victorian ‘outrage’. It considers what we stand to gain by bringing an imperial history perspective to bear on what remains, for most imperial historians, a largely forgotten conflict. In positing Yokohama as a bridgehead that could gain only fitful purchase in London, it asks new questions about the conduct of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and the fault lines of mid-Victorian expansion; the place of Japan in British political imaginaries; the nature of informal empire; and the discourses buffeting British expansion in the turbulent 1860s.     

Changing patterns of landownership in nineteenth-century Palestine: The European influence

Long-term changes in landownership patterns and their implications for settlement have been neglected by geographers, both in theoretical and empirical studies. Studies in this field relating to the Middle East are of a very general nature, and are not based on detailed examination of regional trends, their components, and geographic variables. In Israel, most of the published literature on this issue has dealt with the process of land purchase by Jews and has focused mainly on the period of the British Mandate (1918–1948). Misleading statements abound and the roots of the processes which evolved in nineteenth-century Palestine are poorly understood.The middle of the nineteenth century in Palestine marked the end of a quarter of a millenium of neglect and decline. Around 1800 Palestine was a backward province of the Ottoman empire, largely rural and sparsely populated. Both rural and urban economies were traditional and poor. From about 1850, a process of change began which led to a resurgence and development of the country.An important determinant in this process was an increase of European influence within the Ottoman empire in general and Palestine in particular. This paper (part of a broader study on landownership), will discuss the background, characteristics and motivations of Europeans who purchased land in Palestine during the period, their financial sources, their locational preferences and opportunities. The diverse influences of these land transactions on urban and rural development are considered. These processes ar illustrated by two case studies.     

Democratisation and the British Empire

ABSTRACT

This article responds to the statistically established finding in democratisation studies that British rule seems to have been good for the survival of democracy in its former empire, and that the longer a nation spent under British rule, the likelier it is to have sustained democracy since independence. This is a finding which puzzles political scientists because they think of democracy and empire as opposites. The article considers the uses made of democratic innovation by the British and the responses anti-colonial nationalists made to the offer to ‘lead them to democracy’. It places democracy and empire in a different, more complex relationship. It also considers the contribution of anti-colonial protest to the working of democracy.     

Boundary commissions as tools to safeguard British interests at the end of empire

Despite the many differences between Britain's decolonization of South Asia in 1947 and its withdrawal from the Palestine Mandate in 1948, there were important similarities in the British approach to boundary commissions in the two cases. As imperial interests evolved, boundary commissions proved flexible tools to preserve British prestige in the face of limited policy options. They were particularly useful in the years before and after World War II, when, with the empire facing potential disaster, its leaders sought to preserve its prestige in the eyes of domestic audiences and international allies. With its power fading, it was all the more important that the empire appear to be firmly in control. In particular, an examination of the Peel, Woodhead, and Radcliffe commissions shows that British leaders intended them to contribute to a façade of power. This article demonstrates that in retrospect they reveal the decline of imperial sway and the rise of nationalist influence.     

After Emancipation: Thomas Fowell Buxton and Evangelical Politics in the 1830s

After the Emancipation Act of 1833 officially abolished slavery in the British empire, it became clear that the anti‐slavery coalition was even more tenuous than many had believed. The expectations created by reform, and by the previous measures removing disabilities on dissenters and catholics, sent the various elements within the anti‐slavery camp in different directions. This splintering of efforts was especially true of evangelicals in parliament. During the next four years, the anti‐slavery leader, Thomas Fowell Buxton, went through a reorientation as he worked to make sense of his priorities under new political conditions. Although involved with many issues of the day, Buxton came to focus on the plight of aboriginal peoples in the British empire and then formulated his proposals to end African slavery. Buxton's shift represents a larger one for evangelicals in England. While they could not all agree on the benefits or morality of poor law reform or the appropriate way to handle the Irish Church question, most could agree that the peoples coming under British rule should have their rights protected, especially if it opened a way for further missionary activity. By 1840, Buxton's efforts provided a set of concepts and an agenda for many people of otherwise diverse political bent. Domestically, the evangelical communities in Britain might disagree on what policy and programmes served their civilisation best; but they all agreed that Britain's growing empire needed to be directed in a way that promoted christianity and commerce, and hence the spread of ‘civilisation’.     

Empire and ethnicity†

ABSTRACT. Historians and social scientists have typically assumed a conflictual or exploitative relationship between empire and ethnicity. On the one hand, empire might be seen (as perhaps Ernest Gellner saw it in Nations and Nationalism) as a superstructure of coercion to which a group of ethnic units were subject. On the other (according to an influential view), empire fabricated ethnicities (tribes or castes) to divide and rule. This article suggests that both of these views are too crude. In the British case at least (and in the modern history of empire, no generalisation that excludes the British case has much value), ‘imperial ethnicity’ was a much more subtle phenomenon. It existed ‘at home’ as one element in a more complex identity. It was a powerful force in British settler societies, where an indigenous identity could not be imagined. And, perhaps surprisingly, it was deeply attractive to some colonial elites in Asia and Africa – at least for a time.     

Enlightenment and Empire,Mughals and Marathas: the Religious History of India in the work of East India Company servant,Alexander Dow

This article situates the work of East India Company servant Alexander Dow (1735–1779), principally his writings on the history and future state of India, in contemporary debates about empire, religion and enlightened government. To do so it offers a sustained analysis of his 1772 essay ‘A Dissertation Concerning the Origin and Nature of Despotism in Hindostan’, as well as his proposals for the restoration of Bengal, both of which played an influential part in shaping the preoccupations with Mughal history that dominated the contemporary crisis in the Company’s legitimacy. By linking these texts to his earlier work on ‘Hindoo’ religion, it will argue that Dow’s analysis of the relationship between certain religious cultures and their civic qualities was rooted in a deist perspective. It doing so it restores the enlightenment components of Dow’s thought, and their impact on the ideology of empire, in a crucial period of British expansion in India.