British Empire Research Articles

Following Women's Money: Population, Development, and Indo-American Birth Control Politics in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract: This article traces the history of a transnational birth control movement centered on India and the United States during the 1950s, a transitional decade that followed Indian independence from the British Empire and that witnessed growing US hegemony in a cold war world. I focus on one key philanthropic organization, the Watumull Foundation, and the activities of its leader, Ellen Jensen Watumull. The Watumull Foundation funded birth control activists in India and the United States, including Dhanvanthi Rama Rau and Margaret Sanger, and supported a growing turn toward population control as a chief purpose of the transnational birth control movement. The result was an Indo-American birth control politics in the 1950s that drew upon racialized networks of kinship, marriage, and friendship; was controlled largely by women; and mobilized small donors to bring American philanthropy into Indian development planning.

Decentering the American Empire

It must have been eight years ago when I read Paul Kramer's article for the first time. Back then, I had just finished my PhD and was developing a new research project thematically located at the intersection of medical, imperial, and global history. One of the particularities of the German academic path when compared to the Anglo-American context is the expectation to embark on a completely different line of inquiry after defending your doctoral dissertation. Postdoctoral researchers venture into an entirely new topic, often take on a new century, and, for good measure, turn to another region of the world. At a time when I was surfacing from a thesis on German post-1945 international history, reading “Power and Connection” was tremendously helpful and instructive in guiding my first steps into the vast terrain of nineteenth-century imperial and colonial history. While its insights into the imperial dimension of U.S. history were fascinating, it was more so its framing of the American case, as a modern empire among others, that led me to the article. Ultimately, this interest evolved into my current project on the policies on epidemics in the nineteenth-century British and American empires. This framing provides the angle for my re-reading of “Power and Connection.” From an imperial historian's perspective, particularly of British imperial history and comparative empire studies, I explore here some of the links between the broader discipline and Kramer's essay up to 2011 when it was published and thereafter.

Colonial City, Global Entanglements: Intra-and Trans-Imperial Networks in George Town, 1786–1937

Abstract: The city of George Town, Penang has always been enmeshed in complex circulations of trade, people, and ideas. By the end of the nineteenth century, George Town developed a multicultural and polyglot society that included a kaleidoscopic mix of ethnic groups. This article investigates the role played by George Town’s cosmopolitan population in developing the port-city into a global hub for commercial, intellectual, and physical interchange. In particular, this article argues that the city’s success depended on intricate webs of personal and professional connections developed by George Town’s residents across Southeast Asia and beyond. It hones in on how one community, the Peranakan Chinese, built and leveraged networks across the British, Dutch, and Japanese Empires. By exploring these intra-and trans-imperial networks, this article makes the case for studying colonial cities like George Town not as passive nodes of empire but as active sites within overlapping imperial networks.

The impact on Spain of Anglo-French informal imperialism in the colonization of Morocco, 1898–1914

In the decade before the First World War, Spain failed in its attempt to establish an independent role in the fierce competition between the French, British and German Empires for influence in the Western Mediterranean. The exercise of informal power by France and Britain forced Spain’s Restoration elites to conform to British and French imperial interests in France’s colonization of Morocco. The article suggests Spain’s governing parties were unable to manage the essential mediating role for collaborating elites in informal empires, as defined by Ronald Robinson, between the demands of the imperial powers and the political pressures arising from changing social forces within the country. Spain’s dilemma was an early example of the conflict that faced many newly independent colonies later in the twentieth century: how to reconcile the growing aspirations for national self-determination in a world dominated by competing imperial powers, themselves increasingly facing internal contradictions and crises.

Island of dreams: Post/colonial imaginaries in contemporary Cypriot Anglophone literature

The island of Cyprus has for centuries been a contested terrain, and occupied by various colonial powers. I use Cyprus joining the Commonwealth in 1960 as a starting point to explore the relationship between Cyprus and specifically British colonial rule in the twentieth century, read through the lens of two works by contemporary Anglophone Cypriot authors Polis Loizou and Alexandra Manglis. I examine how these authors undermine colonial imaginaries of the island, using speculative and literary forms to emphasize the slippages, instabilities, and fugitive nature of colonial subjects. Enfolding the complex history of the island within these readings, I posit Cyprus as a mythologically rich and boundary-vexing “island of dreams”, and foreground imaginative writing from Cypriot authors in counterpoint to historical colonial attitudes.

A Welsh Vision of Empire? Welsh Imperialists and the Indian Empire

Neither Welsh history nor imperial history has given much attention to the Welsh connection with empire. While English, Scottish, and Irish imperial history have been developed in recent decades, Wales has been largely ignored. In relation to India, there have been projects on missionaries and the East India Company, but little that focuses on Welsh imperialists during the period of Crown Rule. Despite having a smaller presence than other British nationalities, the Welsh were present in India between 1858–1947, and interacted with imperialism in ways which were distinctly Welsh. This research will explore the Welsh in India during this period and how their Welsh identity interacted with the empire to create a unique Welsh conception of imperialism. Constructed in the domestic press, it emphasised Welsh understanding of indigenous peoples through their own experience of being a minority within the UK and attached itself to a strong sense of Britishness manifested in loyalty to the empire. This ideology, however, had limited impact on the ground in India, with Welsh imperialists generally conforming to the racial and class norms of British India. Welsh imperialism remained a prism through which the Welsh thought about themselves rather than a method of action. Examining this experience adds new dimensions to imperial thinking, especially in relation to how faith and language were transported, reimagined, and contested in the colonial sphere. It demonstrates how the British exported their national and regional ideological baggage which continued to influence their thinking, despite being removed from the physical landscape in which they were forged. Welsh people like Sir Lawrence Jenkins and the missionaries of the Northeast of India had tangible impacts on the colonial space which were fundamentally inspired by their Welshness. This greatly adds to our understanding of how British imperialism operated and has implications far beyond India.

Workers of the Empire Unite: Radical and Popular Challenges to British Imperialism, 1910s–1960s

Workers of the Empire Unite: Radical and Popular Challenges to British Imperialism, 1910s–1960s

Blue Humanities and the Color of Colonialism

The cultural study of water has seen a prismatic shift toward the color blue. This is often articulated as a move away from the terrestrial focus of green ecologies and environmentalism, toward blue aquatic inquiries. What happens when green becomes blue and the blue humanities take shape under the umbrella of the environmental humanities? This article examines the blue humanities to argue that its blues address colonial inheritances and critique colonial desires. Blue has long appealed to the colonial imaginary; it drew European ships across the seas to mine blue pigment from Afghan rocks and raise indigo plantations on stolen land, with stolen labor. The article analyzes the lapis lazuli series by Dutch artist Pieter Paul Pothoven and the performance of the poem “Unity” by Aotearoa New Zealand poet Selina Tusitala Marsh. Pothoven’s work shows how blue analysis accounts for the fact that the color blue has built empires, taken lives, and altered environments. Marsh’s poetry and presence in the heart of the British Empire visualizes blue resistance against imperial power and the persistent defiance of colonization in the Pacific region. The article argues that blue transoceanic European and Pacific colonial connections become disarticulated in the blue humanities and their aquatic encounters.

The Land, the Sea, and the Colonial Production of Space within the Anglo/British Empire

The manufacturing of colonial legal spatialities in the Age of Discovery has traditionally been studied by historians, human geographers, and cartographers. Seldom have legal scholars examined it. This essay aims to fill the gap in legal research and assesses processes of spatial production that took place in colonies by adopting a legal-geographical approach. Special attention is paid to how the English, and later British Empires manufactured both terrestrial and oceanic spaces. The essay maintains that, within what this article calls the ‘Anglo/British Empire’, the integrated geographies of land and sea were facilitated by some intrinsic qualities of the English common law. Its legal coding devised a holistic approach that captured the whole earth even beyond the divide between land and sea.

Heroic Fear

The image of the heroic adventurer, who shot big game or traveled remote regions of the earth, populated the British Empire’s exploration and hunting narratives. Scholars have done much to deconstruct this image but have so far barely touched on the emotional dimensions of encounters between Britons and dangerous natural environments in tropical colonies. This article combines literary-historical criticism with a history of emotions perspective to show how the expression or, alternately, elision of fear in adventure memoirs helped to frame encounters with wild animals and sheer topography as part of imperialism’s moral project. It analyzes texts that recount events in and around India and parts of Africa, published between the 1890s and 1940s. The article’s author discusses a range of authors from obscure settlers and army officers to well-known proponents of the adventure genre such as Mary Kingsley, Jim Corbett, and Francis Kingdon-Ward. Together, these accounts demonstrated that fear held a legitimate and powerful place in heroic imperial narratives by helping readers to identify with the danger that a narrator had to overcome. Narratives of fear increased in number and forthrightness after the First World War, highlighting the impact of the wider British questioning of prewar models of heroic masculinity on imperial adventure literature.

Piracy? What Piracy?

In discussing piracy herein, the reference is not to historical maritime raiders bestowed with titles by the British Empire, such as Sir Francis Drake, who appropriated gold from the Spaniards, themselves having previously stolen it from indigenous peoples ("Indians"). The act of pilfering from thieves is presently regarded with skepticism and presents distinct ethical quandaries. Rather, my focus pertains to instances wherein scientific and medical publications/ideas have been unlawfully appropriated. One might assume that such occurrences are antiquated or, at the very least, obsolete in contemporary times. Regrettably, they persist. Wherever opportunities emerge, certain transgressions ensue, irrespective of their moral permissibility. The adage "opportunity makes a thief" holds true. Within this discourse, I will scrutinize and evaluate specific behaviors exhibited by authors affiliated with publishing entities and those commonly termed "pirates". Various measures exist to comprehensively safeguard intellectual property against misappropriation. These encompass strategies such as confidentiality, distrust, heightened security awareness, precautionary measures, exercise of prudence, and the utilization of pre-print servers, among others.

The Third Earl Grey, Liberalism, and the British Empire

This article suggests that Henry, third Earl Grey, had a vision of a liberal British world, which he hoped to implement through a political career. It was based on strong executive governance, representative politics, and the abolition of protection and slavery. It relied on the free market and good race relations to bring progress. He rejected the idea that legislation could impose improvement on colonial peoples. His program was quickly derailed, because of turbulent representative politics in Britain and the colonies after 1848. Later political developments made any integrated liberal vision of empire even more impractical. Studying Grey's arguments, and their fate, can help the task of defining British imperial liberalism. It is best understood as an attempt to check (Tory) vested interests, rather than as an ideology of interventionist improvement. Its priorities and tensions make most sense in relation to the concepts, assumptions, and turning points that dominated British politics.

Canadian Nickel for Nazi Germany – How Government-Business Relationships Affected British Blockade Strategies in the 1930s

This article presents a case study of the Canadian-based International Nickel Company (INCO) and its efforts to develop the German market in the 1930s, contributing to Nazi-German war preparations and hampering British blockade strategies. It examines government-business relations in blockade planning and argues that conflicts of interest and information asymmetries between state and business actors affect blockade preparations. In times of peace, trade flows are shaped mainly by private actors. They often have an information advantage, but are primarily pursuing their business interests, which can result in either alignment or conflicts of interest. Understanding the government-business relations in blockades is key to understanding blockades and economic warfare in general. Previous research has found evidence of alignment of interests, such as companies using state autarky policies in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to develop new markets. Similarly, companies employed the strategy of an independent British Empire in strategic raw materials to develop markets. However, government-business relations in the context of British blockade planning have not yet been thoroughly investigated. Drawing on private and public archival material from Britain and Germany, this case study examines the motives and strategies of INCO, British and German war planners.

(Re)negotiating State Authority: How Hinterland Protests against Global Capital Impact the Mediating Role of Traditional Rulers in Postcolonial Sierra Leone

AbstractSesay draws from three hinterland protests against multinational corporations in the mining and agricultural sectors to examine how global capital influences central/local politics in postcolonial Sierra Leone. Focusing specifically on the mediating role of traditional rulers—a strong legacy of British colonial indirect rule—Sesay argues that hinterland protests not only enable the relative autonomy of rural citizens to (re)negotiate with the state outside existing political arrangements but also challenge the broker authority of these rulers in center/peripheral relations. While some protests form new alignment of interest with traditional rulers, others allow rural citizens to bypass their chiefs to summon the attention of central authorities. In either of these processes, the local constituents question the position of chiefs in the indirect governance system and shape the governing strategies adopted by the central government to rule over the hinterland.

“The monetary test of loyalty”: on the financing of visits by British princes to the Empire in the 60s and 70s of the XIX century

Importance. In the 60–70s of the XIX century, representatives of the royal family of Great Britain visited the possessions of the British Empire. The issue of financing was one of the fundamental issues in their implementation. Being closely connected with the sphere of political reputation management, it went beyond the boundaries of exclusively organizational practice. The purpose of the study is to explore the specifics of the financing mechanism for visits by members of the British ruling family to the empire’s possessions in the 60s and 70s of the 19th century and to determine the importance that it began to acquire in the process of building Britain’s relations with these territories.Materials and Methods. Historical-genetic and problem-chronological methods make it possible to analyze the process of monetary support for visits of British princes to the empire’s possessions and determine its role in the context of imperial construction of Great Britain.Results and Discussion. On the basis of sources – materials from the British and colonial press, journalistic publications, parliamentary documents – the features of the financing mechanism for official royal visits and official trips of British princes to the possessions of the Empire of various types are analyzed. The guidelines that conforms the organizers of royal trips and ceremonial receptions in carrying out the task of providing them are revealed.Conclusion. In the context of the royal visits’ implementation, the issue of their financing acquired conceptual importance. Through the sponsorship of the British princes’ trips by the colonial authorities and the public, as well as by the imperial government, ideas that were important for the development of interaction between the metropolis and its possessions were broadcast.

الإحتلال البريطاني للعراق دراسة في تطوره السياسي


 يتناول هذا البحث مرحلة مهمة من تاريخ العراق([i]) الحديث، ألا وهي مرحلة الاحتلال البريطاني للعراق منذ 1917م، عندما دخل البريطانيون بغداد بقيادة الجنرال ستانلي مود وأعلنوا احتلالهم للعراق. ويلاحظ ان تاريخ العراق المعاصر يتوافق مع هذا الحدث المؤثر. لذلك فأن فهم هذا الاحتلال ودوافعه وموقف الشعب العراقي منه مهم جداً لفهم التاريخ العراقي في مراحله اللاحقة. ويبين كذلك فهم الآخرين للعراق وشعبه وكيفية تعاملهم معه. وبعد مرور قرن من الزمن على هذا الحدث فأن اعادة دراسته له أهمية خاصة وبصورة عامة وان كان تحدي الاحتلال كبيراً بالنسبة للعراقيين فان الاستجابة لهذا التحدي كان عظيماً حيث أثبت بأنه لايمكن حكم العراقيين بصورة مباشرة. إن البحث الذي قمت بكتابته وبتوفيق من الله عز وجل يبدأ قبل فترة الاحتلال المباشر فقد تناولت في بدايته وقوع العراق في نفوذ الدولة العثمانية وأوضاعه تحت سيطرة العثمانيين وأهمية العراق الستراتيجية وكذلك المعاهدات التي جرت بين الحكومتين العراقية والبريطانية، وأثر ذلك على كردستان الحلم ويختتم البحث بدور المقاومة وإنهاء الاحتلال البريطاني في ثورة العشرين التي كان للكرد نصيب فيها ضمن حركة التحرر الكردية ولا أجزم بأن البحث قد نال مرحلة الكمال، لأن الكمال لله عز وجل وحده ولكن أدعوا أن يكون قد نال رضا الله ومن يقرأه، والله الموفق.
 
 ([i]) هناك آراء كثيرة حول اصل ومعنى العراق: ينظر: سالم الآلوسي، اسماء العراق وبغداد، بيروت، الوراق للنشر، 2013، ص ص9-174.

The Death of Queen Elizabeth, the Death of the British Empire

The life of Elizabeth Windsor famously kmown by her title Queen Elizabeth the second, is one of mixed realites she is the longest reigning British Monarch in history having set on the throne for 70 years. The reign of Elizabeth was born from the greatest times of the British Empire with many colonies and a great reputation of the empire after the defeat of the Germans in World war 2. Queen Elizabeth has been credited in overseeing the end of colonisation from the British empire by many African states who were under British colonial rule. She facilitated for negotiations in some cases between liberation war movements and the colonial governments on peaceful ways of transfering power. Her Queen`s government even went on to sanction Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia when it declared independence from Britain, the sanctions were as a result that her majesty`s government would only accept independence if it was given to the majority black africans of Rhodesia. The British economy under her rule had prospered beyond unimaginable dought with the British pound being the most powerful currency, the attractiveness of the pound attracted great minds from across the globe which helped improve the British economy and advanced its technological base. The common wealth of nations an organisation the Queen championed has had success in cooperation between Britain its former colonies and other countries that were not British colonies have since joined the organisation because of its successes. This paper seeks to show how the British economy, social base and its political prowess has suffered from the days that the Queen became sick to her subsequent death and the aftermath. Policies like the Brexit that was carried out during her old age and its impact of Britain will be visited upon in this article, the Irish referendum, the removal of the British Mornach as heard of state by carribean nations that belonged to the British realm. The paper seeks to show how Elizabeth Windsor was the glue that bonded British modern society and the survival of the British monarch without her is under threat.In her life Queen Elizabeth worked with 15 British Prime Ministers from diverse parties sharing diferent ideologies this showed her to be a democratic monarch. This paper will expand on the front of the death of monarchs and empires in the modern era and Elizabeth Winsdor being the last great monarch.

‘The Beauty of Our Hills Is Being Sacrificed’: Afforestation, Forestry and Colonial Environmentalism in British Hong Kong

This article examines the afforestation and tree protection efforts in Hong Kong during its colonial period from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Initially, the afforestation department adopted objectives in the 1870s purely for hygienic and urban planning purposes. Yet, with the support of the British Empire’s botanical network, the department successfully transformed Hong Kong Island into a verdant city by the turn of the twentieth century despite facing challenges. However, protecting afforested areas posed difficulties for the department as the local Chinese continuously damaged the trees in exchange for firewood, which was vital to their everyday life. In addition to this, the article also analyses the disputes that arose due to differing views on the usage of trees among the European community and the government in 1904–1905. These challenges forced the latter to abandon its profit-driven tree felling policy and became Hong Kong’s first tree conservation campaign.

Geo-political vampirism: how and why has Western literary scholarship appropriated and then re-mythologised the socio-historical origins of the vampire?

The article considers the claims of Western academics like Frayling (1992) that the literary vampire began with Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). Crawford (2016) identifies a German literary vampire tradition existing one hundred years before Polidori, yet that work has strengthened Eurocentric claims concerning the literary vampire by academics like Bloom (2018). The article reviews Anatol’s (2022) challenge to the dominant position of Dracula in vampire criticism, Anatol identifying a literary tradition pre-dating Stoker, that tradition seeing the documenting of Caribbean vampire folklore by British colonialists/slave owners, travel writers and journalists. In sympathy with Anatol’s non-Eurocentric consideration, the article re-examines/disputes Western academia’s ‘mythology’ concerning the Villa Diodati (1816), when Lord Byron’s reading from the German Fantasmagoriana apparently inspired Polidori and Mary Shelley to write their novels. The article identifies an Ottoman literary tradition that directly influenced Byron’s 1813 poem ‘The Giaour’, his unfinished story ‘A Fragment’ (1819), and Stoker’s Dracula. The article explores Ottoman vampire (‘obur’) literature, starting with Celebi’s Book of Travels of 1666, which refers back to the fifteenth century ‘vampire fatwas’ in the Balkans under Ottoman rule. The article traces how the dominant Turkic languages of the region informed the proto-Albanian language, the ‘vampire’ (as both term and demonised ‘other’) entering Albanian folklore. The Ottoman empire declining, the rising Austro-Hungarian and then British empires appropriated the vampire westward, exoticising and demonising non-central Europeans. Finally, the article provides a post-colonial reading of Southey’s 1801 orientalist poem Thalaba the Destroyer, reading the first true ‘vampire’ in English literature.

Subjugated to Free Independent States of America, Boston Tea Party by Sons of Liberty and Declaration of Independence

This article explores how Native Americans and Africans have historically been treated by Europeans, with a particular emphasis on how both groups have been portrayed as barbaric and primitive in a variety of media, including literature, minstrel shows, newspapers, and advertisements. We'll talk about Native Americans' difficulties and how they gained their independence in this section. European colonization of North America resulted in the displacement of these tribes, who were then forced into reservations and subjected to assimilation strategies that were often violent and betrayed treaties. European assimilation efforts aimed to erase Native American culture, history, and identity through the establishment of boarding schools that forced Native American children to adopt European habits, attire, and language. The method was intended to "kill the Indian, save the man," as institutions such as the Carlisle Indian School illustrated. Despite the hardships and cultural loss inflicted on Native Americans, their experience in boarding schools was critical in developing future Native American leaders and building a sense of pan-Indian identity, thereby refuting the notion of them as a dying race. The article also delves into the influence of British colonial rule on Native Americans, as well as the imposition of taxes without representation, which sparked riots such as the Boston Tea Party. The Continental Congress and the following Declaration of Independence were watershed points in the American Revolution. Furthermore, the Coercive Acts meant to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, stoked colonial discontent and aided in the commencement of the American Revolutionary War. The article finishes by underlining the significance of these historical events in establishing the identity of the United States and the ongoing struggle for Native Americans' rights and acknowledgment. This in-depth examination of historical events and their interconnectivity sheds light on the complicated and often brutal interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans, which ultimately influenced the establishment of the United States and its values (Volo, 2003).