Imperial Dimension Research Articles

Edwardian ladies1 and the “race” dimensions of british imperialism

Abstract In the early 20th century, Edwardian ladies offered gender-conscious (if not overtly feminist) leadership in the development of imperialist organisations and propaganda in Britain. The “race” dimensions of imperialism were keenly fostered within associations which focused on the “white settler colonies,” and on women’s uniquely important role in perpetuating their whiteness, moral strength and political permanence within the Empire. The article examines the convergence in upper-class leadership, and in ideas and policies concerning “race,” between the Girls Friendly Society, the Primrose League, the British Women’s Emigration Association, and the Victoria League. Sources include the private papers of leading ladies, as well as organisational records and contemporary published works.

The independence of the judiciary: the view from the Lord Chancellor's Office

Part 1 The Lord Chancellor's Office and the age of Muir-Mackenzie: the founding of the Lord Chancellor's Office the Muir-Mackenzie era the imperial dimension the changing concept of the judiciary. Part 2 The Schuster era - high policy: the machinery of government and the long weekend a little matter of constitutionalism the Hewart explosion. Part 3 Schuster and the judges: choosing the judges county court salaries - the doctrine of unripeness pay claims - the high court and high drama. Part 4 Schuster and the end of empire: the judicial committee - the beginning of the end a case study of Canada. Part 5 The era of Napier and Coldstream - numbers, appointment and control of the judges: the number of judges choosing the judges controlling the judges the executive and the judiciary. Part 6 The end of Napier and Coldstream - the use of the judiciary: the uses of ignorance, impartiality and independence the classic case - the restrictive practices court restrictive practices - the public doubts another spoke in the wheel - the Lord Chancellor's Office and committees. Part 7 Judicial salaries from the 1940s to the 1980s: the Labour years 1945-1951 the Conservative administration 1951-1964 the later years. Part 8 The later years - vignettes from the end of empire: Canada resiles - Sri Lanka pursues and who, pray, shall sit?. Epilogue: the last decades the perplexing problems of judicial independence criticizing the judiciary the judiciary reformed? the Lord Chancellor's department and the future.

Russian Imperialism: Popular, Emblematic, Ambiguous

T hese three richly suggestive essays give strong and hopeful promise that future studies of Russian imperialism will be informed as much by culture as by diplomatic and military history. By their substance and eloquence they challenge the traditional reliance on geopolitics as the dominant explanatory model of Russian foreign policy. At the very least they contribute to the modest body of scholarly literature that proposes geoculture as an alternative way of analyzing the dramatic expansion and the no less dramatic contraction of the Russian state over the past five centuries. In addition, they explore and contrast two dimensions of imperialism, the universalistor European-and the particularist-or Russian. Finally, they remind us of the importance of making analytical distinctions between the self-perception of the imperialists and the critical perception of the scholar. The overall effect, subtle but compelling, is to question once again the hoary dualism of Westernizer and Slavophile as a useful intellectual framework in which to compose cultural history. In every modern state imperialism shares a commonality of motives: the search for markets and raw materials, the assumption of greator world-power status, the consolidation of real or imagined security interests and the fulfillment of a national mission. But in each case the definition of the national mission must differ, reflecting the peculiarities of the dominant culture of the metropolitan center. Manifest destiny, the white man's burden, la mission civilisatrice, the contest between Kultur and Zivilization-yes, and even the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere-were so many forms of shorthand, slogans, to legitimize continental and overseas expansion, simplified like all shorthand, but capturing essentials of the real phenomenon. Russia lacked a popular and catchy phrase to capture the essence of its imperialism. Pushkin's narodnost' might have worked if the term had not been expropriated and vulgarized by Uvarov and Nicholas I. But this absence of a defining term should not blind us, as these essays demonstrate, to the complex cultural traits that informed Russian expansion. Modern Russian imperialism was no more or less particularist than that of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany or Japan. It was cast in a different cultural mold; the problem is to explain the difference.

The Missing Link: the Imperial Dimension in Understanding Hanoverian Britain

The Missing Link: the Imperial Dimension in Understanding Hanoverian Britain

La Dimensión Imperial Del Español En La Obra De Aldrete

La Dimensión Imperial Del Español En La Obra De Aldrete

The Influence of the Imperial Frontier on British Doctrines of Mechanized Warfare

One of the most vexatious questions of twentieth century military history concerns the manifest ascendancy of British theoretical development of mechanized warfare during the inter-war period. Why this should be so in a society which was by no means the most motorized in the contemporary world and which was already displaying a distinct penchant for technological stagnation poses a perplexing riddle. Facile attributions of such hegemony to either the inherent genius of the two progenitors of mechanized warfare, J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart, or a shallow acceptance of these theories as an obvious ramification of British experience in the First World War would seem to neglect other profound intellectual and military influences. Such a renowned historian as John Keegan has even written that it is “unrewarding” to speculate on the reasons for British preeminence in military thought during the inter-war years. The search for such explanations, however, constitutes the historian's task.Although definitive resolutions to the conundrums posed by the emergence of intellectual trends can never be achieved, this essay will contend that Britain's leadership in the development of doctrines of mechanized warfare can be partially attributed to her heritage of mobile warfare along the frontiers of empire. The neglect of this imperial dimension is one of the factors which has thus far obscured our understanding of the genesis of innovative thought among British military intellectuals during the interwar years. Furthermore, the tendency to interpret Britain's military role almost solely in reference to the looming armored clashes on the European continent during World War Two has seduced some military historians into ignoring the long-term historical antecedents of an emphasis on celerity of movement bred by the imperial tradition of dynamic attack.