Is Humpty Dumpty Together Again? Imperial History and the Oxford History of the British Empire

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. THOMPSON
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Humpty Dumpty

Transimperial History - Connectivity, Cooperation and Competition

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hedinger ◽  
Nadin Heέ
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Japanese Empire ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Cooperation And Competition ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The One ◽  
Empire Studies ◽  
Shed Light

Transimperial History – Connectivity, Cooperation and Competition This Forum article argues that a turn in empire history is needed, one which we label «transimperial». Whereas national history has been transnationalized in recent decades, the history of empires has, by and large, remained nationalized. Since transnational history, global history, postcolonial studies and new imperial history all offer an abundance of tools to tear down imperial borders and deconstruct nationalized narratives, the moment seems to have come for a shift, namely for what we call a transimperial approach to imperial history. We seek to show how such an approach makes it possible to dynamize and decentralize the history of empires both on the level of empirical research and historiographical narratives. By including marginalized empires we offer a way to overcome British centrism of empire studies. On the methodological level, this contribution seeks to discuss imperial competition, cooperation and connectivity not as separate phenomena but as entangled processes. The point is not to analytically isolate cooperation or competition but to shed light on how they reinforced each other and how connectivity plays into this. The article shows that a key to establishing a transimperial approach is to consider time and space together by focusing on the transformative aspect of competition, cooperation and connectivity in spaces in-between empires. In this article, we highlight transimperial histories avant la lettre, on which such an approach can rely. Finally, we discuss how this approach helps challenge essentializing master narratives in empire studies, be it the one in which the British Empire serves as a model for other empires or the one where the Japanese empire is seen as a mimicry of European imperialism.

Policing the British Empire on the Bund: The Origin of the Sikh Police Unit in Shanghai

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Cao Yin
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Municipal Police ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
Modern Shanghai

Red-turbaned Sikh policemen have long been viewed as symbols of the cosmopolitan feature of modern Shanghai. However, the origin of the Sikh police unit in the Shanghai Municipal Police has not been seriously investigated. This article argues that the circulation of police officers, policing knowledge, and information in the British colonial network and the circulation of the idea of taking Hong Kong as the reference point amongst Shanghailanders from the 1850s to the 1880s played important role in the establishment of the Sikh police force in the International Settlement of Shanghai. Furthermore, by highlighting the translocal connections and interactions amongst British colonies and settlements, this study tries to break the metropole-colony binary in imperial history studies.

The Foreign Policy Mechanism of the Union Of South Africa and the Development of its Diplomatic Relations (1910–1948)

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-86
Author(s):  
Alexandra Arkhangelskaya
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Political ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Economic Evolution ◽  
Local Elite ◽  
History Of

The history of the formation of South Africa as a single state is closely intertwined with events of international scale, which have accordingly influenced the definition and development of the main characteristics of the foreign policy of the emerging state. The Anglo-Boer wars and a number of other political and economic events led to the creation of the Union of South Africa under the protectorate of the British Empire in 1910. The political and economic evolution of the Union of South Africa has some specific features arising from specific historical conditions. The colonization of South Africa took place primarily due to the relocation of Dutch and English people who were mainly engaged in business activities (trade, mining, agriculture, etc.). Connected by many economic and financial threads with the elite of the countries from which the settlers left, the local elite began to develop production in the region at an accelerated pace. South Africa’s favorable climate and natural resources have made it a hub for foreign and local capital throughout the African continent. The geostrategic position is of particular importance for foreign policy in South Africa, which in many ways predetermined a great interest and was one of the fundamental factors of international involvement in the development of the region. The role of Jan Smuts, who served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924 and from 1939 to 1948, was particularly prominent in the implementation of the foreign and domestic policy of the Union of South Africa in the focus period of this study. The main purpose of this article is to study the process of forming the mechanisms of the foreign policy of the Union of South Africa and the development of its diplomatic network in the period from 1910 to 1948.

Empires of Antiquities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Billie Melman
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
World War ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Mandate System ◽  
First World

Empires of Antiquities is a history of the rediscovery of the imperial civilizations of the ancient Near East in a modern imperial order that evolved between the outbreak of the First World War and the decolonization of the British Empire in the 1950s. It explores the ways in which near eastern antiquity was redefined and experienced, becoming the subject of imperial regulation, modes of enquiry, and international and national politics. A series of globally publicized spectacular archaeological discoveries in Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine, which the book follows, made antiquity material visible and accessible as never before. The book demonstrates that the new definition and uses of antiquity and their relations to modernity were inseparable from the emergence of the post-war international imperial order, transnational collaboration and crises, the aspirations of national groups, and collisions between them and the British mandatories. It uniquely combines a history of the internationalization of archaeology and the rise of a new “regime of antiquities” under the oversight of the League of Nations and its institutions, a history of British attitudes to, and passion for, near eastern antiquity and on-the-ground colonial policies and mechanisms, as well as nationalist claims on the past. It points to the centrality of the new mandate system, particularly mandates classified A in Mesopotamia/Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan, formerly governed by the Ottoman Empire, and of Egypt, in the new archaeological regime. Drawing on an unusually wide range of materials collected in archives in six countries, as well as on material and visual evidence, the book weaves together imperial, international, and national histories, and the history of archaeological discovery which it connects to imperial modernity.

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