The Greeks of old: modelling the British Empire for a twenty-first century America

The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment

Enemies in the Empire ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198850151.003.0013 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 303-314

Author(s):

Stefan Manz ◽

Panikos Panayi

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

British Empire ◽

First Century ◽

Great War ◽

Early Twenty ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

The Great War ◽

The Way

This chapter begins by highlighting the main findings of the book, including the globalization of internment by the Empire during the Great War and the consequences for individuals and their families, but also the fact that Britain treated those it had incarcerated in a humane way. The chapter examines the return to Germany, its consequences for individuals, and the way in which the German authorities dealt with the former residents of the British Empire. These people, who may not have seen their homeland for decades, made efforts to preserve the memory of their experiences, along with former civilian and military prisoners who came from other states at war with Germany. While the memory of internment may have survived into the interwar years, it disappeared in the second half of the twentieth century, but came back to life in the early twenty-first century, inspired by the centenary of the Great War.

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R. F. BURTON Revisited: Alternate History, Steampunk and the Neo-Victorian Imagination

Open Cultural Studies ◽

10.1515/culture-2017-0056 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 591-603

Author(s):

Iolanda Ramos

Keyword(s):

British Empire ◽

Real Life ◽

First Century ◽

Fictional Characters ◽

Alternate History ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

History Approach ◽

Cultural Features

Abstract This article draws on an alternate history approach to the Victorian world and discusses steampunk and neo-Victorian literary and cultural features. It focuses on Richard Francis Burton-one of the most charismatic and controversial explorers and men of letters of his time-who stands out in a complex web of both real-life and fictional characters and events. Ultimately, the essay presents a twenty-first-century revisitation of the British Empire and the imperial project, thus providing a contemporary perception of Victorian worldliness and outward endeavours.

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Conclusion

From Servants of the Empire to Everyday Heroes ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198841180.003.0008 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 247-252

Author(s):

Tobias Harper

Keyword(s):

British Empire ◽

First Century ◽

Social Changes ◽

Contemporary Politics ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Successes And Failures

The conclusion discusses two recent cases of people who have been stripped (or who people tried to strip) of their honour: Fred Goodwin and Jimmy Savile. Using them and other examples, it poses questions about the successes and failures of the honours system to adapt to rapid social changes at the end of the century, and to the legacy of empire in Britain. In contemporary politics, the honours system continues to raise tensions between ideological positions about the relative public worth of different forms of service, the meaning of citizenship in Britain and the former British Empire, and the interactions between social and economic hierarchies. In a globalized, rapidly-changing Britain, honours may seem incongruous or obsolete with their pseudo-medieval imagery; however, they are as important in the twenty-first century as in the twentieth because they reinforce hierarchies, and provide a means of debating these tensions.

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