Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (review)

Abstract

In his preface to Ornamentalism, David Cannadine describes the United States as "the last authentic western imperial power" (xiii). In light of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and public interest in the nature of empire, the significance of Cannadine's book has increased since it first appeared as part of a larger Oxford University Press publishing venture that included the five volumes of the Oxford History of the British Empire (1998-99) and Jane Samson's useful reader, The British Empire (2001). Nonetheless, it is important to go back to Cannadine's original purpose in writing Ornamentalism, for which he had wished to borrow the title of Joseph Schumpeter's Imperialism and Social Classes (1951). Like Schumpeter's quirky analysis of the atavistic mercantile and military nature of European imperialism, Cannadine's exploration of "social structure" and "social perceptions" [End Page 532] (xviii) in the rise and fall of the British empire pursues an intriguing but contentious thesis about imperialism and social hierarchies.