War and the emergence of the English parliament, 1297–1360

Although the opening of the Hundred Years' War led the kings of France and England to make similar demands upon their subjects, the effect on the monarchy and on the Estates was markedly different in the two countries. In England taxation gave parliament a central role in the medieval polity while in France it strengthened first local autonomy and then absolute monarchy. Because parliament had an inescapable obligation to grant taxation for common defence, the Commons sought to limit this to periods of open war, and to criticise and control the handling and expenditure of the tax. The character of taxation, as levied by common assent and for the common profit, likewise permitted resistance to the extension of prerogative rights and the assertion of parliament's right to grant the tax on wool. In these matters the Commons were forced into a defensive dialogue with the Crown over their obligations which educated them in political argument and the techniques of parliamentary opposition. The power to levy taxation on grounds of ‘necessity of state’ strengthened both monarchies; but in England this was subject to the assent and authority of parliament which thereby emerged as a political institution concerned with the common needs of the realm.     

An enduring influence on imperial defence and grand strategy: British perceptions of the Italian Navy, 1935–1943

The Mediterranean was a vital artery of the British Empire. It was a strategic corridor, linking Britain to its Middle and Far East possessions and precious resources. Its control was a central tenet of British imperial strategy, yet by the mid-1930s, this faced a new challenge from Fascist Italy. The Italian Navy was central to expansionist aspirations and forced British reappraisals of the allocation of defence resources both in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. It therefore came to exert a generally under-appreciated influence on pre-war British imperial defence policy and war planning. Although consistently viewed as vastly inferior to the Royal Navy, it was still seen as an impediment to Britain's ability to deliver imperial defence across the globe, or conduct a worldwide war against multiple enemies. This view persisted even after important defeats were inflicted on it in 1940–1941, and continued right through to 1943. Awareness of the seriousness with which the British viewed Italian naval strength adds important context to debates about British strategy in the Far East and over Winston Churchill's preference for a ‘Mediterranean first’ strategy. Italian naval power played a greater role in shaping the Allied prosecution of the Second World War than is commonly accepted.     

The rhetoric of science and the critique of imperialism in British social anthropology,c. 1870–1940

In this article I discuss issues of memory and historicity in a contemporary African prophetic movement, the Tokoist church. I do so by focusing on the multiple processes of “biographization” of the prophet’s (Simão Toko) life from the different allegiances within the movement. I suggest that, despite recent critiques on the biographical method, the ethnography of those (unstable and heterogeneous) processes can be very helpful to understand the place of memory and historical consciousness in contemporary Christianity.     

Of peasants and settlers: ideals of Portugueseness,imperial nationalism and European settlement in Africa,c.1930–c.1945

This article examines policies and ideas of European settlement in Africa through the lens of imperial rhetoric and nationalist imaginations in Portugal during the first decades of Salazar’s dictatorship. Even though European settlement in Africa was under discussion since Brazil’s independence, the debate was invigorated in the 1930s. This article will place the renewed interest within the wider context of transnational migration, world economic crisis and inter-European competition for colonial dominance before the Second World War. Although European settlement was perceived as necessary both in terms of domestic social regulation and international competition at the time, state-sponsored settlements in Portuguese Africa were not a reality until the worldwide process of decolonization had started. On the contrary, not only did Portuguese political elites not invest in settlement schemes, but they actually adopted measures to curb migration to the colonies up until 1945, contradicting their imperialist rhetoric at home. The author argues that the contradiction between rhetoric and practice needs to be analysed in light of the growing desire to intensify control over space and people in European settlements in Africa. Barriers to block undesirable migrants from the metropole were only one part of the process of forcing an idealized vision of Portugal and Portugueseness into reality in both the colonies and the metropole. This article concludes that policies and ideas of European Settlement cannot be dissociated from the anti-urban rhetoric and anti-modernizing agenda of Estado Novo.