scholarly journals Brexit, boundaries and imperial identities: A comparative view

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The European Union ◽  
British Identity ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

The year 2016 will be marked as a year in which identity politics reached new levels of significance. Among numerous dramatic events, the UK referendum on membership of the European Union has brought many issues of interest to archaeologists to the fore. These range from entirely contemporary concerns, such as the future of research funding in Britain, to topics of more longitudinal significance, including the interactions between different identity groups in particular economic and political circumstances. In this paper, I wish to explore aspects of the distinctive position of Britain as an illustration of identity dynamics in the long term, focussing on the relationship between imperialism and identities and viewed through the lens of recent work in Border Studies. Brexit can be seen as the culmination of the collapse of the British empire, and transformation of British identity, in the post-Second World War era and the particular dynamics of this process invite comparison with Britain’s earlier position as one of the frontier provinces of the Roman empire, especially in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. This comparison reveals two paradoxical dimensions of imperial identities, the first being that so-called ‘peripheries’ can be more important than ‘cores’ in the creation of imperial identities and the second that such identities can be simultaneously ideologically powerful yet practically fragile in the circumstances which follow imperial collapse. Such insights are important because, at a time of apparently resurgent nationalism in many countries, archaeologists need to work harder than ever to understand identity dynamics with the benefit of time depth.

The Imperial Army Project

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Delaney
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Military Cooperation ◽  
High Point ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

How did British authorities manage to secure the commitment of large dominion and Indian armies that could plan, fight, shoot, communicate, and sustain themselves, in concert with the British Army and with each other, during the era of the two world wars? This is the primary line of inquiry for this study, which begs a couple of supporting questions. What did the British want from the dominion and Indian armies and how did they go about trying to get it? How successful were they in the end? Answering these questions requires a long-term perspective—one that begins with efforts to fix the armies of the British Empire in the aftermath of their desultory performance in South Africa (1899–1903) and follows through to the high point of imperial military cooperation during the Second World War. Based on multi-archival research conducted in six different countries on four continents, Douglas E. Delaney argues that the military compatibility of the British Empire armies was the product of a deliberate and enduring imperial army project, one that aimed at ‘Lego-piecing’ the armies of the empire, while, at the same time, accommodating the burgeoning autonomy of the dominions and even India. At its core, this book is really about how a military coalition worked.

scholarly journals CONSERVATIVE PARTY AND THE PROBLEMS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (on the pages of “Diary of a diplomat” by I. M. Maisky)

2016 ◽  
pp. 32-37
Author(s):  
E. V. Khakhalkina
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
World War ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Second World

The “Diary” of the Soviet diplomat I. M. Maisky, who worked in London for more than ten years first as a messenger, then as the Soviet ambassador to the UK, is one of the valuable sources for the interwar period and the Second World War. The “Diary” contains records of Maisky’s conversations with the leading British politicians and public figures and his own thoughts on a wide range of issues, including the problems of the British Empire. The author of the paper analyzes the views of the Tories on the prospects for the British Empire and the Commonwealth of the postwar period and reveals the plans for the reconstruction of the Empire and its transformation while maintaining the dominant position of Britain in the format of a new relationship with the dominions and colonies. The paper shows that within the British political establishment there was no consensus on the future of the empire and, as the materials of the “Diary of diplomat” evidence, the problem of the evolution of the Empire had a close relationship with other areas of foreign and domestic policy.

Grand Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-40
Author(s):  
Lawrence Freedman
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

A concept of “grand strategy” only emerged during the first decades of the twentieth century. Through the nineteenth century, strategy had a very narrow meaning, largely concerned with getting troops into the best position for battle. Tactics was concerned with the conduct of battle. For a number of reasons, including the importance of peacetime preparation for war, the separation between military strategy and the wider political and economic context came to be recognized as untenable. The contemporary strategy of grand strategy was developed in the UK first by the naval theorist Corbett and then by Fuller and Liddell Hart after the First World War. It referred to the nonmilitary aspects of prosecuting a war. After the Second World War, grand strategy tended to be used to refer to the higher conduct of war where the political, social, and economic came together with the military. Most use was made by historians who found it helpful as a way of discussing past politico-military conduct, even going back to the Romans. It came back into prescriptive use as the Cold War drew to a close. This encouraged the contemporary concept, which refers to the bringing together of all elements of a state power in pursuit of long-term objectives, which has been criticized for being too ambitious.

“The Sinn Féin of India”: Irish Nationalism and the Policing of Revolutionary Terrorism in Bengal

2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 454-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Silvestri
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Indian History ◽  
British Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian National Army ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

A recent article in the Calcutta magazine Desh outlined the exploits of a revolutionary fighting for “national freedom” against the British Empire. The article related how, during wartime, this revolutionary traveled secretly to secure the aid of Britain's enemies in starting a rebellion in his country. His mission failed, but this “selfless patriot” gained immortality as a nationalist hero. For an Indian—and particularly a Bengali—audience, the logical protagonist of this story would be the Bengali nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose, the former president of the Indian National Congress, assumed the leadership of the Indian National Army with the support of the Japanese imperial government during the Second World War in the hopes of freeing India from British rule. The subject of the story, however, was not Bose, but the United Irishmen leader Theobald Wolfe Tone and his efforts in 1796 to secure assistance for an Irish rebellion from the government of Revolutionary France. The article went on to narrate how Ireland had been held in the “grip of imperialism” for an even longer period of time than India and concluded that the Irish and Indian nationalist movements were linked by a history of rebellion against British rule.As the Desh article illustrates, the popular image of the relationship between Ireland and India within the British Empire has been that of two subject peoples striving for national freedom. This linkage of Irish and Indian history has had particular resonance in Bengal.

Economic Nationalism and Foreign Domestic Investment (FDI)

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-216
Author(s):  
Yang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Domestic Investment ◽  
World War ◽  
Economic Nationalism ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

Nationalism is not closing the door to other nations. On the contrary, sometimes it exhibits as crazy expansion. For example, during the Second World War, both Adolf Hitler and Emperor of Japan claimed that they are helping their citizens. However, that is not the truth. Both German and Japanese people suffered something that they wouldn't have suffered without this war. Meanwhile, nationalism is one reason that the other countries keep fighting the war. By observing the relationship among nationalism, government policies and intervention, and FDI, this chapter attempts to offer an understanding of how FDI is impacted by the nationalism and government policies and intervention by providing two cases: the Brexit of the UK and the “American First” of the USA.

2. Federalism

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Burgess
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The European Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
Comparative Federalism ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This chapter examines the relationship between federalism and European integration, with the goal of demonstrating the relevance of the federal idea to the building of Europe. It first clarifies some fundamental concepts such as federalism, federation, confederation, the modern state, and European integration. It then considers federalist theory and practice, along with three strands of federalism that emerged after the Second World War: Jean Monnet’s ‘federalism by instalments’, Altiero Spinelli’s ‘democratic radicalism’, and ‘integral’, ‘personalist’, or Proudhonian federalism. The chapter proceeds by exploring comparative federalism and the insights it provides on the future shape of the European Union, the implications of liberal intergovernmentalism for federalism, and the ramifications of the evolution of the EU Constitution for federalism. Finally, it assesses the questions that the challenge of EU enlargement poses for federalism and the federalists.

BME community engagement in the UK and public policy: a brief retrospective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asif Afridi
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World ◽  
Minority Ethnic

This chapter outlines the ways in which ethnic minorities have been represented through ‘community engagement’ work and the close relationship between British race relations policy and the development of a black and minority ethnic (BME) community and voluntary ‘sector’ since the Second World War. It suggests that the relationship between the state and BME communities has been restrained (even contained) and has impeded progress on race equality. It argues that new forms of community engagement may ultimately be required to help progress race equality in the UK, but this requires a reevaluation of societal views on what it means to ‘represent’ and achieve ‘equality’. The chapter focuses specifically on community engagement, an important part of community development in its broadest sense.

scholarly journals Practice, Discourse and Experience: The Relationship Between Design History and Architectural History

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Jessica Kelly ◽  
Claire Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
Architectural History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Design History ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic Identities ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

Abstract This Special Issue explores the relationship between architectural history and design history; two disciplines with close subject areas and methodological links, but which have developed distinct institutional and academic identities that often separate them. This introduction frames the articles contained in the issue—which in different ways demonstrate the compelling nature of research that straddles these disciplines—through an examination of the roots such research approaches have within the recent past of each field. Through a re-reading of key moments within the historiography of each discipline in the UK and USA since the Second World War, it is possible to understand how architectural and design history have evolved in relation to each other, and how the expansion of each into the territory of the other has emerged.

scholarly journals The Chagos Islands cases: the empire strikes back

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-287
Author(s):  
Tom Frost ◽  
C R G Murray
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Second World War ◽  
First Century ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Second World

Good governance requires the accommodation of multiple interests in the cause of decision-making. However, undue regard for particular sectional interests can take its toll upon public faith in government administration. Historically, broad conceptions of the good of the commonwealth were employed to outweigh the interests of groups that resisted colonisation. In the decision-making of the British Empire, the standard approach for justifying the marginalisation of the interests of colonised groups was that they were uncivilised and that particular hardships were the price to be paid for bringing to them the imperial dividend of industrial society. It is widely assumed that with the dismantling of the British Empire, such impulses and their accompanying jurisprudence became a thing of the past. Even as decolonisation proceeded apace after the Second World War, however, the UK maintained control of strategically important islands with a view towards sustaining its global role. In an infamous example from this twilight period of empire, in the 1960s imperial interests were used to justify the expulsion of the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Into the twenty-first century, this forced elision of the UK’s interests with the imperial ‘common good’ continues to take centre stage in courtroom battles over the islanders’ rights, being cited before domestic and international tribunals in order to maintain the Chagossians’ exclusion from their homeland. This article considers the new jurisprudence of imperialism which has emerged in a string of decisions which have continued to marginalise the Chagossians’ interests.

Globalization: A missed opportunity

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 563-573
Author(s):  
Giovanni Bazoli
Keyword(s):  
Financial Risk ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The West ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World ◽  
Missed Opportunity

One of the paradoxical reasons for the 2008 financial crash was that the competition between the Western and Eastern blocs was played out and won not militarily but rather on the grounds of economic efficiency. Because the primacy of the West had been established by economics and not armaments, not only did the West forgo the construction of a new global governance, but it also failed to reinforce the existing one, which might have avoided the risks of unbridled capitalism. The 20-year period between 1989 and 2008 highlighted a radicalization of the capitalist model on which developed Western societies were based, together with a distorted conception of the corporation. The relationship between democracy and free market is asymmetrical: democracy cannot survive without a free market, while the free market functions even in the absence of democracy. In fact, one of the reasons why several Italian banks such as Intesa Sanpaolo were less affected by the 2008 crisis than other institutions around the world was precisely that they relied less on financial risk than on credit. However, the West seems to have now lost the capacity of vision that the United States and the founding fathers of the European Union demonstrated at the end of the Second World War. Must the West, therefore, resign itself to a marginal role in world affairs, or does it still have a chance to regain an influential role in a fairer and more solidarity-orientated global order?

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