The Imperial Synthesis
The British Scholar Journal attempts to understand the field of British history as a whole and overcome fragmentation—to find not a compromise but a new direction. If this issue is evidence, there is some reason to believe that a new approach is emerging. Historians have slowly started to move beyond the polarized fields of both traditional imperial history and post-colonialism by exploring new knowledge produced by an imperial synthesis of shared experience that has now become the heritage of a globalized world. Exploring such an imperial synthesis moves us beyond the divide between metropole and periphery, active agent and passive victim, and traditional history and post-colonialism. It enables historians to see the British Empire as a theatre where new knowledge arose from the crucible of interaction. Part of the goal of defining and discovering this synthesis of imperial knowledge requires a critical assessment of the European agency, and morality, of imperialism. To do this, we must understand the practice of history itself. The first article of this journal analyses two journals, the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, and the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, as well as two museums, the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol, and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. In this article, Angela Woollacott differentiates traditional imperial history and its emphasis on the exercise of power through economic and political levers (with its longing for lost imperial glory), from that of the postcolonial, that leads us into the broader meadows of cultural history, sexual history, and the history of race relations, to name just a few. In her article “Making Empire Visible or Making Colonialism Visible? The Struggle for the British Imperial Past,” Woollacott lays bare four central examples of these two approaches. Rather than taking us down the familiar list of scholars on each side of this divide, she displays a material analysis of this bifurcated field by excavating the ideological British Scholar Vol. I, Issue 2, 151-4, March 2009
- Research Article
- 10.3366/brs.2009.0102
- Sep 1, 2009
- British Scholar
Angela Woollacott’s polemical article ‘Making Empire Visible or Making Colonialism Visible’ raises important questions.1 Unfortunately – as I shall seek here to show – her own answers to these questions are often less than convincing, and indeed her way of posing the questions is sometimes unhelpful. Woollacott’s perspective on the current state, and stakes, of play in scholarship about British imperial history, and the history of colonialism, is a stimulating intervention. Yet it is also a notably over-simplified view, and in part a puzzlingly combative or aggressive one. Why, one wonders, does she choose to write of ‘the struggle for’ the imperial past, rather than ‘the debate over’ or better still the conversation or dialogue about it? Hers is also an oddly outdated argument both in terms of her perception of major relevant intellectual trends, and in her evaluation of how some pertinent institutions, notably journals and museums active in the field, have developed. Two of the institutions on which Woollacott focuses are ones with which I have a close personal involvement. These are the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (JICH), of which I have been co-editor since the start of 2008, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum (BECM), for which I have served as an academic advisor and under whose auspices I have several times talked, written
- Research Article
- 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00468.x
- Aug 1, 2007
- History Compass
Teaching & Learning Guide for: Nabobs Revisited: A Cultural History of British Imperialism and the Indian Question in Late‐Eighteenth‐Century Britain
- Supplementary Content
2
- 10.1080/0308653042000279678
- Sep 1, 2004
- The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
The twentieth-century rise of the United States as a global military superpower has resulted in the stationing of American armed forces personnel in dozens of allied countries and client states. On...
- Research Article
- 10.14321/jwestafrihist.8.2.0133
- Sep 1, 2022
- Journal of West African History
Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire
- Research Article
335
- 10.1086/241367
- Dec 1, 1975
- The Journal of Modern History
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.-J. C. Beaglehole, of the Victoria University of Wellington, was until his death in 1970 the doyen of New Zealand historians and-together with J. W. Davidson of the Australian National University, who died in 1973-a leader in developing historical consciousness and historiography in the South Pacific world area. His editions of the journals of Captain Cook and his Life of Captain James Cook (published in 1974 by Stanford University Press) are not only masterpieces of scholarship and insight into the eighteenth century but unrivaled in their penetration of oceanic, as well as merely maritime, history. The New Zealand Historical Association maintains an annual lecture in his memory, and the essay which follows was originally delivered as the first Beaglehole Memorial lecture when that association met at the University of Canterbury in May 1973. It was subsequently printed in the New Zealand Journal of History (vol. 8, no. 1, April 1974) and is republished here with minor alterations by the generous permission of that journal's editors. What follows is a modified version of an essay in historical restatement, which owes much to John Beaglehole's own vision and his understanding of what vision is.
- Research Article
- 10.1093/fs/knad035
- Feb 13, 2023
- French Studies
The colonial history of India is frequently associated with the British Empire, yet the French Empire also had a long-lasting and significant presence in India. Jessica Namakkal illuminates this important aspect of India’s colonial history and its legacy in her engaging book, which offers original insights and contributions to various disciplines, including French studies, colonial history, postcolonial studies, political science, and memory studies. Namakkal draws on a wide range of sources, perspectives, and original methodologies, including the study of archival material, the press of various nations, memoirs, interviews, visual media, and observations of the landscape and events taking place in contemporary Pondicherry, the former capital of the French Empire in India. The work highlights the complex entanglements, tensions, and rivalries between the British and French Empires that shaped India’s colonial history. The author offers detailed portraits of key figures who played important roles in defining the colonial history and the future of French India, such as Sri Aurobindo, Mira Alfassa, Édouard Goubert, and Raphael Ramanyya Dadala, tracing their actions and examining their thought. The volume also explores the complex interrelations between identity, nationality, ethnicity, and caste of residents of French India, and highlights the ways in which attitudes towards nationality shifted in tandem with the evolving policies and politics of the Empire. Namakkal casts light on the various migrant trajectories which arose as a consequence of the French Empire in India, including the experiences of those who migrated from Europe to French India, those who sought refuge from the British Empire in French Indian territories, and those who migrated from India to France after independence. Through an analysis of various case studies, Namakkal explores the plight of French nationals of Indian origin after independence, who were frequently alienated from both nations. She also provides fresh insight into the experiences and political significance of mixed-race residents of French India, offering a new perspective on the concept of ‘creolization’ in the context of Pondicherry. A particular strength of the work lies in its novel approach to the concept of decolonization. The author argues that decolonization in the context of French India is not merely to be equated with liberation and peace, but suggests that it engendered violence, and remains incomplete in various senses. Namakkal casts light on the ways in which various aspects of the colonial regime, including divisions and inequalities between local and foreign populations, and the oppression of indigenous populations, continue today in the form of the settlement of Auroville near Pondicherry, which, despite the utopian vision of its founder, Alfassa, ‘exemplifies the phenomenon of anticolonial colonialism, a key concept in understanding neocolonialism in a postcolonial world’ (p. 183). This thoroughly researched and thought-provoking book, which offers insights into a frequently neglected aspect of India’s colonial history, is especially valuable to scholars working in postcolonial, French, and South Asian studies.
- Research Article
- 10.1215/00382876-72-1-165
- Jan 1, 1973
- South Atlantic Quarterly
Book Review| January 01 1973 India and East Africa: A History of Race Relations Within the British Empire, 1890–1939 by Robert G. Gregory India and East Africa: A History of Race Relations Within the British Empire, 1890–1939. By Gregory, Robert G.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Pp. xviii, 555. $24.00. Gerald W. Hartwig Gerald W. Hartwig Duke University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (1973) 72 (1): 165–166. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-72-1-165 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Gerald W. Hartwig; India and East Africa: A History of Race Relations Within the British Empire, 1890–1939 by Robert G. Gregory. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 January 1973; 72 (1): 165–166. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-72-1-165 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsSouth Atlantic Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1973 by Duke University Press1973 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
- Research Article
61
- 10.1086/497716
- Sep 1, 2005
- The Journal of Modern History
Next article No AccessDissolving Distance: Technology, Space, and Empire in British Political Thought, 1770–1900*Duncan S. A. Bell Duncan S. A. BellChrist’s College, Cambridge University Search for more articles by this author Christ’s College, Cambridge UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 77, Number 3September 2005 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/497716 Views: 465Total views on this site Citations: 26Citations are reported from Crossref ©2005 by The University of Chicago. PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Duncan Bell, David Armitage, Jessica Blatt, Desmond Jagmohan, Fabian Hilfrich, Menaka Philips Duncan Bell, Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America. Princeton University Press, 2020, Contemporary Political Theory 21, no.22 (Jan 2022): 315–350.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-021-00543-4Peer Schouten, Jan Bachmann Infrastructural frontiers: Terrains of resistance at the material edge of the state, Geoforum (Jun 2022).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.06.002Alex Middleton Robert Montgomery Martin and the Origins of ‘Greater Britain’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 49, no.55 (Feb 2021): 833–865.https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2021.1892376Alexis D. Litvine The Annihilation of Space: A Bad (Historical) Concept, The Historical Journal 22 (Jul 2021): 1–30.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X21000601David Gethin Morgan-Owen History and the Perils of Grand Strategy, The Journal of Modern History 92, no.22 (Jun 2020): 351–385.https://doi.org/10.1086/708500Graeme Thompson Upper Canada’s Empire: Liberalism, Race, and Western Expansion in British North America, 1860s – 1914, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 48, no.11 (Jul 2019): 39–70.https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2019.1638624JOSHUA EHRLICH The Crisis of Liberal Reform in India: Public opinion, pyrotechnics, and the Charter Act of 1833, Modern Asian Studies 52, no.0606 (Aug 2018): 2013–2055.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X16000780JULIAN HOPPIT SIR JOSEPH BANKS'S PROVINCIAL TURN, The Historical Journal 61, no.22 (Aug 2017): 403–429.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X17000164David L. Blaney Late-Victorian Worlds: Alfred Marshall on Competition, Character, and Anglo-Saxon Civilization, (Apr 2017): 127–152.https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-871920170000032006 9. Literaturverzeichnis, (Aug 2016): 314–351.https://doi.org/10.13109/9783666301773.314M. J. Bayly Imperial ontological (in)security: 'Buffer states', International Relations and the case of Anglo-Afghan relations, 1808-1878, European Journal of International Relations 21, no.44 (Dec 2014): 816–840.https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066114557569Terra Walston Joseph Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race and an Anglo-Saxon Global “Greater Britain”, Nineteenth-Century Contexts 37, no.33 (May 2015): 233–248.https://doi.org/10.1080/08905495.2015.1030839Charlotte Mathieson Introduction: Journeying Victorian Britain, (Jan 2015): 1–18.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137545473_1Theresa Levitt The Lighthouse at the End of the World Illuminating the French and British Empires, Itinerario 38, no.11 (May 2014): 81–102.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115314000060MARC-WILLIAM PALEN ADAM SMITH AS ADVOCATE OF EMPIRE, c. 1870–1932, The Historical Journal 57, no.11 (Jan 2014): 179–198.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X13000101Andrew Phillips From Global Transformation to Big Bang-A Response to Buzan and Lawson, International Studies Quarterly 57, no.33 (Jul 2013): 640–642.https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12089Matthew Taylor Editorial – sport, transnationalism, and global history, Journal of Global History 8, no.22 (Jun 2013): 199–208.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022813000181Jan Rüger Insularity and Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century, (Jan 2013): 149–166.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312662_8Laura Rotunno Telegraphing Literature in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four, (Jan 2013): 119–146.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137323804_5Nicole Starosielski Warning: Do Not Dig’: Negotiating the Visibility of Critical Infrastructures, Journal of Visual Culture 11, no.11 (Apr 2012): 38–57.https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412911430465Frank Schipper, Johan Schot Infrastructural Europeanism, or the project of building Europe on infrastructures: an introduction, History and Technology 27, no.33 (Sep 2011): 245–264.https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2011.604166H. S. Jones The Victorian Lexicon of Evil: Frederic Harrison, the Positivists and the Language of International Politics, (Jan 2011): 126–143.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230319325_6Glen O’Hara New Histories of British Imperial Communication and the ‘Networked World’ of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries, History Compass 8, no.77 (Jul 2010): 609–625.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00694.xPhilip O’Regan ‘A dense mass of petty accountability’: Accounting in the service of cultural imperialism during the Irish Famine, 1846–1847, Accounting, Organizations and Society 35, no.44 (May 2010): 416–430.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2009.10.001Shaunnagh Dorsett Sovereignty as Governance in the Early New Zealand Crown Colony Period, (Jan 2010): 209–228.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230114388_12James Smithies The Trans-Tasman Cable, the Australasian Bridgehead and Imperial History, History Compass 6, no.33 (May 2008): 691–711.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00518.x
- Research Article
1
- 10.1353/cch.2000.0004
- Sep 1, 2000
- Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
Bibliography of Books and Articles Published on Colonialism and Imperialism in 1999 Kimberly Bray Knight Journal Articles Adelman, Jeremy and Stephen Aron. “Of Lively Exchanges and Larger Perspectives.” American Historical Review 104, no. 4 (October 1999) : 1235–1239. Adelman, Jeremy and Stephen Aron. “From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation- States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History.” American Historical Review 104, no. 3 (June 1999) : 814–841. Alborn, Timothy L. “Age and Empire in the Indian Census, 1871–1931.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 30, no.1 (Summer 1999) : 61+. Apter, Andrew. “Africa, Empire, and Anthropology: A Philological Exploration of Anthropology's Heart of Darkness.” Annual Review of Anthropology 28 (1999) : 577–598. Beloff, Max. “Empire Reconsidered.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 27, no. 2 (May 1999) : 13–26. Bhatia, Nandi. “Staging the 1857 ‘Mutiny as The Great Rebellion’: Colonial History and Post-Colonial Interventions in Utpal Dutt's ‘Mahavidroh’.” Theatre Journal 51, no.2 (May 1999) : 167–184. Bradley, P.T. “English Views of the Indians of Peru.” Seventeenth Century 14, no. 2 (Fall 1999) : 143–160. Brody, H. “Tribal life: Statistics - European Colonialism has Caused the Death of 50 Million Tribal People.” Index on Censorship 28, no. 4 (July–August 1999) : 124–125. Butow, R.J.C. “A Notable Passage to China - Myth and Memory in FDR's Family History.” Prologue-Quarterly of the National Archives 31, no. 3 (Fall 1999) : 159+. Chanter, Alaine. “Will there be a morning after? The Clonial History of the Media in New Caledonia.” Journal of Pacific History 34, no. 1 (June 1999) : 91–108. Cowell, A. “The Apocalypse of Paradise and the Salvation of the West: Nightmare Visions of the Future in the Pacific Eden.” Cultural Studies 13, no. 3 (January 1999) : 138–160. Darwin, John. “An Undeclared Empire: The British in the Middle East, 1918–39.” Journal Imperial and Commonwealth History 27, no. 2 (May 1999) : 159–176. David, D. “Imperial Chintz: Domesticity and Empire.” Victorian Literature and Culture 27, no. 2 (1999) : 569–577. Douglas, B. “Provocative Readings in Intransigent Archives Finding Aneityumese Women.” Oceania 70, no. 2 (December 1999) : 111–129. Fabricant, Carole. “Speaking for the Irish nation: The Drapier, the Bishop, and the Problems of Colonial Representation.” ELH-English Literary History 66, no. 2 (Summer 1999) : 337–372. Falola, T. “British Imperialism: Roger Louis and the West African Case.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 27, no. 2 (May 1999) : 124–142. Fitzmaurice, Andrew. “The Civic Solution to the Crisis of English Colonization, 1609–1625.” Historical Journal 42, no. 1 (March 1999) : 25–51. Goldsmith, Edward. “Empires without Armies (Third World Countries.” The Ecologist 29, no. 3 (May–June 1999) : 154–157. Guy, D.J. “The Morality of Economic History and the Immorality of Imperialism.” American Historical Review 104, no. 4 (October1999) : 1247–1252. Ha, Marie-Paul. “Engendering French Colonial History: The Case of Indochina.” Historical Reflections-Reflexions Historiques 25, no. 1 (Spring 1999) : 95–125. Hilliard, Chris. “Stories of Becoming: The Centennial Surveys and the Colonization of New Zealand.” New Zealand Journal of History 33, no. 1 (April 1999) : 3–19. Kerr, D. “Orwell, Animals, and the East.” Essays in Criticism 49, no. 3 (July 1999) : 234–255. Khodarkovsky, Michael. “Of Christianity, Enlightenment, and Colonialism: Russia in the North Caucasus, 1550–1800.” Journal of Modern History 71, no. 2 (June 1999) : 394–430. Kiester, Edwin and SallyValente Kiester. “Yankee Go Home, and Take Me With You (Filipinos and the Lingering Legacies of United States’ Colonialism).” Smithsonian 30, no. 2 (May 1999) : 40+. Kramer, Paul. “Making Concessions: Race and Empire Revisited at the Philippine Exposition, St. Louis, 1901–1905.” Radical History Review 73 (Winter 1999) : 74–114. Kroes, R. “American Empire and Cultural Imperialism: A View from the Receiving End.” Diplomatic History 23, no. 3 (Summer 1999) : 463–477. Landsman, Ned C. “Nation, Migration, and the Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and the Americas, 1600–1800.” American Historical Review 104, no. 2 (April 1999) : 463–475. Lieven, Dominic. “Dilemmas of Empire 1850–1918. Power, Territory, Identity.” Journal of Contemporary History 34, no. 2 (April 1999) : 163–200. Levene, M. “A Moving Target, the Usual Suspects and (Maybe) a Smoking Gun: The Problem of Pinning...
- Research Article
32
- 10.1891/1062-8061.15.147
- Sep 1, 2007
- Nursing History Review
For a period of seventy years, from 1896 to 1966, the Colonial Nursing Association (CNA) (renamed the Overseas Nursing Association [ONA] in 1919) recruited 8,400 women to work as nurses throughout the British Empire. The Association operated as a recruitment agency for the Colonial Office (CO), and during its operation, recruits were sent to every dominion and territory of the Empire. Initially, the CO adopted an arm's-length approach, but during World War II it became more direcdy involved in overseas nurse recruitment, establishing the Colonial Nursing Service (CNS) in 1940. The CNS formalized the government's policies in relation to nurse colonial officers who were recruited through the ONA. This development ensured parity for women in the colonial service, promoting mobility across colonies and creating the conditions for international reciprocity in nurse education and training. In effect, it established a British nursing empire, with nursing sisters leading education and training as well as implementing nursing practice in a range of clinical settings across the Empire. When the National Health Service (NHS) was established in Britain in 1948, it compounded the postwar shortage of trained nurses, creating an urgent demand for colonial nurses to staff the NHS, a trend that has continued to the present. In this article, we trace the history of overseas nurse recruitment in Britain through the involvement of the CO and its establishment of the CNS. We explore the notion that British nurses who were recruited to work in the colonies acted as agents of imperialism insofar as they embodied a British nursing empire and influenced nursing practice and professionalism internationally. We argue that the colonial history of nursing reflected wider historical colonial developments; in the rise and demise of the CNS, British overseas nursing arguably reached its zenith at the height of colonial rule and declined as colonies gained independence and fully trained indigenous nurses gradually replaced their British predecessors. It was the policy apparatus established by the CO for the unified CNS that arguably laid the foundations for the greater flow of international nurse recruitment from and to Britain, promoting greater ease of nurse migration, which would be crucial in staffing the NHS. Nursing and Imperialism Even a cursory excursion into the archives of bodies such as the CNA reveals the paucity of prior research into the relationship between nursing and empire. This stands in marked contrast to the explosion of interest in the role that science and medicine played in constructing representations of imperialism. The few existing studies based on the CNA archives1 tend to limit their scope to colonial Africa or attempt to locate the nurses within the discourse of colonial and imperial history.2 This has, perhaps, more to do with the current interest in revisionist histories of colonial Africa under British rule than in the history of nursing per se. Insofar as nursing has been absent from colonial and imperial history until these recent revisionist studies, they are a welcome inclusion and corrective to the record. Nonetheless, there has been little attention focused on the administrative and policy links between formal government involvement and international nurse recruitment. The fact that the CNA changed its name to the Overseas Nursing Association (ONA) in 1919 suggests that it sought to redefine itself outside the discourse of colonialism. This raises questions as to the position of nursing sisters in colonial social relations, with both the expatriate community and their indigenous patients and colleagues. The subject of imperial rule was distincdy male, so British nurses who were recruited in the early years of the CNA's operation were something of an anomaly; often, they were the only white women in the colony. For British nursing sisters, life in the colonies was often isolated and lonely; they had little support, except from the local committee, their main point of contact with the Association, which reinforced the Victorian values of the lady nurse of good character. …
- Research Article
- 10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a096339
- Jan 1, 1973
- African Affairs
Journal Article India and East Africa: a history of race relations within the British Empire, 1890–1939 Get access India and East Africa: a history of race relations within the British Empire, 1890–1939, by Robert G. Gregory. Clarendon Press, 1971. 555pp. £7·00. KARIM K. JANMOHAMED KARIM K. JANMOHAMED University of Nairobi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 72, Issue 286, January 1973, Page 90, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a096339 Published: 01 January 1973
- Research Article
62
- 10.1080/03086530310001705606
- May 1, 2003
- The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
(2003). The Welsh world and the British empire, c.1851–1939: An exploration. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 57-81.
- Research Article
4
- 10.1080/17528630902981209
- Jul 1, 2009
- African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal
The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum is an attempt to grapple with Britain's history of imperialism and colonialism. The contents of the museum seek to address both the feeling of pride toward empire and the honest acknowledgement of empire's brutality. Expressing these two sides of Britain's imperialism at the same time makes the museum a site of contested identity. This article examines the ways in which the ambiguity of the museum is a reflection of the ambiguity of Britain's national identity and discusses how the museum's move from Bristol to London may increase the potential for a more reflective dialogue about Britain's history.
- Research Article
10
- 10.1353/rah.1998.0016
- Mar 1, 1998
- Reviews in American History
Exploding Colonial American History: Amerindian, Atlantic, and Global Perspectives Ian K. Steele (bio) Scholars have wonderfully expanded colonial America during Reviews in American History’s first generation, confirming the saying that “No one has changed the course of history as much as the historians.” 1 There is both pleasure and puzzlement in attempting to discern trends within this rich and disparate new literature. Any historiographical sketch is bound to categorize complex and subtle arguments, and to dissolve quickly in the continuing flood of new work. 2 If scholarship involves the testing of explanations, the dismantling of those found inadequate, and the offering of new hypotheses, colonial American history has been well served on the first two counts, but seems unlikely to be reassembled except within a much larger field. These tumultuous changes in perceptions of early America are more than entertainment for historians and their readers. The United States of America is defined and redefined by its “heritage,” even more than countries more coterminous with a language group or an ancient ethnicity. Americans, descended from immigrants, became “American” by reacting to foundation myths and sacred texts, most of which concern the American Revolution rather than the colonial period. Conflicts between professional historians and custodians of “heritage” have only intensified with the growing professional interest in social history, local history, excluded communities, and material culture, all of which coincide with the unprecedented popularity of museums and with the growing appreciation for folk and family heritage. 3 Changing views of America’s origins certainly owe much to genuine academic curiosity and the quest for accuracy and variety, but recent renovations of that history may also be in response to new realities. Exceptionalism, 4 an essential aspect of American culture long after the twentieth-century brought ambivalence towards isolationism, has become a very mixed blessing. Perhaps an increasingly multicultural society at the center of a global economy can appreciate more of its diverse colonial roots, and even be reassured by discovering a long pedigree for the cultural complexity of the present. What follows sketches only a few themes evident from recent scholarship in colonial American history, emphasizing first the explosion of “new social [End Page 70] history.” New work on Amerindian history illustrates how attention to marginalized groups has affected perceptions. A great deal of other new scholarship reasserts an Atlantic context for colonial America. Work on the British Atlantic empire, on early modern capitalism and consumerism, and on the history of migration and religion all contribute to a growing Atlantic perspective. Competing Amerindian and Atlantic aspects juxtapose uniqueness and replication, environment and heredity, as well as frontier and imperial history. Much recent scholarship has pulverized what is referred to as “consensus” colonial history, and uses rich description and statistical precision to reveal a wide variety of life in colonial towns and counties. 5 Many historians support a broader revolt against what might be called “the history of power.” Women, people of “the common sort,” and people of diverse origins and ethnicities are being studied in detail, with emphasis on the mutualities of power relationships. However, it is hard to know to what extent early modern people were preoccupied with seeking individual autonomy or social status. Thanks to God, in a variety of guises, and to a host of community loyalties and dependencies that were then deemed worthy, people could have lives of meaning and happiness without relentlessly seeking or achieving individual “freedom,” material equality, or social power. Some social historians have also consciously rejected the “intellectual history” associated with Perry Miller’s classic work on New England religion. Acceptance of the extremely useful anthropological definition of culture has enhanced our understanding of the symbolic function of goods, and has also encouraged considerable study of colonial religion as the sociology of church. 6 Community studies imply that life for most people was lived face-to-face, and that previous historians overlooked, suppressed, or distorted this reality. Recent community studies include some concern for external connections and imperatives, involving Amerindian and Atlantic features of European colonial life. 7 New England Puritans may have regarded unconverted Amerindians and Europeans as alien and morally corrupt, but now they are all part of the same enlarged story...
- Research Article
132
- 10.1080/03086539608582983
- Sep 1, 1996
- The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
(1996). Imperial history and post‐colonial theory. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 345-363.