Empire: The View from Beyond

JOHN M. MACKENZIE. The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. Pp. x, 34a. £40.00;

STEPHEN CONSTANTINE, ed. Emigrants and Empire: British Settlement in the Dominions between the Wars. Manchester Manchester University Press; dist., St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. x, 208. £40.00;

J.A. MANGAN, ed. Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation and British Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. xi, 227. £40.00

RONALD HYAM. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. ix. 234. £10.95 (paper);

W.J. READER. ‘At Duty's Call’: A Study in Obsolete Patriotism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988. Pp. viii, 152. £45.00;

JACQUELINE BRATTON et al. Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790–1930. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Pp. vii, 248. £40.00;

P.J. RICH. Elixir of Empire: The English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry, and Imperialism. London and New York: Regency Press, 2nd. ed., 1992. Pp. 152. £9.95.     

Hydrology and Empire: The Nile,Water Imperialism and the Partition of Africa

Why did the British march up the Nile in the 1890s? The answers to this crucial question of imperial historiography have direct relevance for narratives and theories about imperialism, in general, and the partition of Africa in the nineteenth century, in particular. They will also influence our understanding of some of the main issues in the modern history of the whole region, including state developments and resource utilisation. This article presents an alternative to dominant interpretations of the partition of Africa and the role of British Nile policies in this context. It differs from mainstream diplomatic history, which dominates this research field, in its emphasis on how geographical factors and the hydrological characteristics of the Nile influenced and framed British thinking and actions in the region. Realising the importance of such factors and the specific character of the regional water system does not imply less attention to traditional diplomatic correspondence or to the role of individual imperial entrepreneurs. The strength of this analytical approach theoretically is that it makes it possible to locate the intentions and acts of historical subjects within specific geographical contexts. Empirically, it opens up a whole new set of source material, embedding the reconstruction of the British Nile discourse in a world of Nile plans, water works and hydrological discourses.     

Beyond Cultural Imperialism: Cultural Theory, Christian Missions, and Global Modernity

"Cultural imperialism" has been an influential concept in the representation of the modern Christian missionary movement. This essay calls its usefulness into question and draws on recent work on the cultural dynamics of globalization to propose alternative ways of looking at the role of missions in modern history. The first section of the essay surveys the ways in which the term "cultural imperialism" has been employed in different disciplines, and some of the criticisms made of the term within those disciplines. The second section discusses the application of the cultural imperialism framework to the missionary enterprise, and the related term "colonization of consciousness" used by Jean and John Comaroff in their influential work on British missionaries and the Tswana of southern Africa. The third section looks at the historiography of missions in modern China, showing how deeply the teleological narratives of nationalism and development have marked that historiography. The concluding section argues that the missionary movement must be seen as one element in a globalizing modernity that has altered Western societies as well as non–Western ones in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and that a comparative global approach to the missionary movement can help to illuminate the process of modern cultural globalization.