Additional Material

Other resources on 'Empire'

 

a) Other articles about empire in popular history magazines

If you are able to access other articles about empire in popular history magazines, you will develop an understanding that historians have very different views about the British Empire. Also, reading other articles about empire will develop your understanding that there are a wide range of questions which can be asked about empire, and the British Empire. It is not just a question of whether the British Empire was ‘a good thing’ or ‘a bad thing’; there is also the question of whether some empires were more benevolent than others (Wrangham’s chapter – see below, for argues that Britain’s empire was more benevolent than other more ruthlessly exploitative versions of empire, run by other European countries). Other articles focus on questions such as the legacy of empire, or differences within empires, or the effect of empire on a nation’s economic development. Sometimes articles differ not because historian’s have different views about empire, but because they are asking different questions about empire.

b) Books

Brown, J.M. and Louis, W.R. (eds) (1999) The Oxford History of the British Empire: the Twentieth Century, Oxford, Oxford University Press, esp. Chs. 3, 4, 14, 15, 18.

Cannadine D. (2001) Ornamentalism: How the British saw their Empire London, Allen Lane,

Colley, L. (2002) Captives, Britain Empire and the World, 1600-1850, London: Jonathan Cape.

Hobsbawm E. (1968) Industry and Empire: an Economic History of Britain since 1750 London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Howe, S. (2002) Empire: a very short introduction, Oxford, OUP.

Ferguson N. (2003) Empire: How Britain made the Modern World, London, Allen Lane.

Schama S. (2002) A History of Britain. [3] : The Fate of Empire, 1776-2000, London, BBC.

c)Web-links

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/endofempire_overview_01.shtml (Text explanation of end of Empire)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/trade_empire_01.shtml (Views on trade. useful for comparison with Ferguson)

http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/online-resources/political-archives (a wide range of British Government documents relating to the end of empire; Web + Video)

http://www.britishpathe.com/search/query/British+Empire (Pathe period newsreels on Empire. Free to schools)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/the-importance-of-the-british-empire/3499.html (Video on British attitudes to black people in the Empire. Contains a basic idea for use in class. Use video with care only after pre-viewing)

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/victorians/06_Empire.htm

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/resource/resource.htm

http://www.historytoday.com/piers-brendon/moral-audit-british-empire

http://www.historytoday.com/peter-clements/legacies-empire

d) YouTube clips

Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World, historian Niall Ferguson: Enduring impact of British empire; role of Buccaneers vs Spain in Caribbean in laying foundations for British empire; Jamaica; economics/agricultural revolution; importance of sugar/tea/tobacco. Stops before slave-trade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSbMBh0YC1c

Territorial evolution of the British Empire (1'10"): A one-minute animation showing a world map overlaid successively with British colonies, spreading and then retreating from 1492-1007. (NB predates formation of 'Britain'): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cB6RirM3ZY

Ten Biggest Empires in history (by landmass) (2 mins): A countdown of the top ten, ending up with the British Empire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18OHntk_bWU

European imperialism in Africa, Discovery Channel (4 mins): A clear explanation and introduction noting brutality, oppression, economic motivations. Congo; scramble for Africa; Heart of Darkness; Liberia/Ethiopia resistance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJe1W_HIWmA

Historical Association (2 mins) How did a small country govern the huge empire?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVgtCBaXoL0

Empire and inter-ethnic sexual relations (9'30" mins) Starts with brief account of Portuguese in Goa; East India Company; sex and inter-marriage. NB some explicit (topless) line-drawings; case-study of Kirkpatrick case in Hydrabad; shift in attitudes after 1857 Revolt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V899ADQHkw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWedTbuAtR4 gives an amusing critical view of Empire for discussion and investigation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hgRLqBZuMQ View of Amritsar Massacre from Attenborough movie ‘Gandhi’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTtZQw_PQA

e) Index of articles on the British Empire in BBC History Magazine:

http://www.historyextra.com/index-search?subject=3596&era=All&mnth=All&yr=All&book_author=&type=All&author=&body=&title=

f) Index of articles in History Today magazine:

http://www.historytoday.com/search/apachesolr_search/British%20Empire

g) Book chapters

Zinn, H. (1980) ‘Columbus’ (Chapter 1) A people’s history of the American people, . This chapter can be accessed online via Google Books. It is a very powerful piece of prose which makes the argument that empires were based on desire for profit and exploitation of native peoples rather than for altruistic or evangelical motives.

Haydn, T. (2014) How and what should we teach about the British Empire in UK schools?, in International Society of History Didactics: yearbook, 2014, Schawalbach, Wochenschau Verlag.

Wrangham, G. (2014) India: training for empire and independence, in International Society of History Didactics: yearbook, 2014, Schawalbach, Wochenschau Verlag.

Additional activity: Comparing the views of two different historians about the British Empire

Niall Ferguson: An Effective Defence of Empire?

A typical Ferguson analysis is contained in his article for the UK’s best selling history magazine. The questions are based around Ferguson’s article, ‘Let’s stop saying sorry for the Empire’, BBC History Magazine, Vol. 4 February 2003.
In some degree of contrast to Denis Judd (see activity) a number of historians from the UK are beginning to write in defence of the achievements of the British Empire. This is no simplistic and jingoistic denial of the Empire’s negatives as may have been found in British classroom of the later nineteenth and early twentieth century but an attempt to move beyond an absolute simplicity – good or bad, take your choice - into a more complex view of the British Empire which, alongside acknowledged negatives, is claimed to have been a force for good, both in the wider world and in the territories controlled by the British.

Niall Ferguson is a controversial and forthright historian from the UK who also works extensively in the USA. He can be considered the most outspoken proponent of portraying the positive side of the British Empire which has been all too often denied by what he sees as ‘apologist’ analyses.

Ferguson begins his article by identifying how the early 21st century had seen the publication of many works each seeking to explain the phenomenon of the British Empire in its own terms defined by Ferguson as ‘an artifice of class consciousness’, ‘organised hypocrisy’ or ‘a product of British weakness and insecurity’. He explains this glut of interest by claiming that ‘wittingly or unwittingly we always study the history of our own times’. He claims in explanation that this early 21st century period was one of American Empire. A typically provocative view since the existence of such an empire would be an informal one and hotly disputed by a United States which has always – at least publicly - seen itself as an opponent of the imperial principle. Ferguson equates the US as a ‘global cop’ in a chaotic world very much in the model of Britain’s ‘Pax Britannica’ of the nineteenth century and seems to see this as a positive model about which in recent years British historians and politicians have swung ‘from nostalgia to neurosis’. He asks the question ‘Can the British Empire be anything other than a terrible warning to today’s global hegemon – a kind of ‘how not to do it’ guide to Imperialism?’

Positives then flow thick and fast. The Empire was a significant forerunner of the globalisation of trade: something to be proud of according to Ferguson as he claims such trade is acknowledged as a force for raising living standards by all but Marxists. He claims that the principal obstacles to such trade in the modern world are corrupt and lawless regimes and points out that ‘the British Empire acted as an agency for imposing free markets, the rule of law, investor protection and relatively incorrupt government on a quarter of the world.’ In other words British control therefore encouraged wealth in colonies and other influenced areas. Accepting that many former colonies are poor today Ferguson points out that the real income gap between colonial power and colonies have broadened vastly since independence.

According to Ferguson British rule promoted not only Liberal capitalism – in contrast to Russian and Chinese control which created only ‘untold misery’ - but also spread the benefits of British law. He claims that of a recent survey of 49 nations those using French law have the weakest protection for investors whereas those using British have the strongest. Government by Britain is portrayed as cheap, efficient and non-venal; in itself promoting similar successor systems which avoid the obstacles to growth created by inefficient and corrupt government. British ex colonies former British territories and colonies are far less likely to have become dictatorships and preserve open institutions better than those of rival colonial powers.

British capacity for self criticism in itself encouraged the development of ‘collaborating elites’ ambitious enough to strive for their own independence. Thereby British rule apparently seems to have encouraged its own decline by promoting self criticising liberal institutions in controlled lands!

Ferguson admits the Empire was guilty of ethnic cleansing, promotion of slavery and transportation but this is seen as of smaller significance than its promotion of free trade, free capital and global communication. It fought small wars but maintained general peace and above all is shown as better than the alternative colonial model represented by the German and Japanese models.

For a fuller grasp of Ferguson’s ideas on Empire do access his 2003 book ‘Empire: How Britain made the modern world’. See below in the Additional Material section for full details.

Do you agree with Ferguson?

Students might find the following hints useful in seeking to analyse and critique Ferguson’s views using the article referred to above as a starting point.

1. David Cannadine’s Ornamentalism, Simon Schama’s Fate of Empire and Linda Colley’s Captives (see additional material, below) are the works respectively described by Ferguson as ‘an artifice of class consciousness’, ‘organised hypocrisy’ and ‘a product of British weakness and insecurity’. Find a paperback version of any one of these. Read the back cover synopsis and decide from that preliminary basis if there is any substance to Ferguson’s casual dismissive summary of its theme.
2. Do we actually tend to write ‘the history of our own times’? Why for example might there have been such revived interest in the classical Greek and Roman world in the era of the French Revolution during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century?
3. What might Ferguson mean by an American Empire? The USA has no formal colonies and usually stations its troops in peacetime by invitation of a host country. How therefore can it possibly have an empire? (consider NATO, Hollywood and McDonald’s as a starting point)
4. On the internet Look up the story of the deaths at Amritsar in 1919 and the British expedition to Tibet in 1904 by Francis Younghusband. Counter this by looking at the Indian Civil Service and the British promotion of railways in the Empire. What might Ferguson mean by a ‘how not to do it’ guide to imperialism and how justified is his description of the Empire as a promoter of trade and good administration?
5. Did Britain behave in the same way in all of its colonies? Look up internet accounts of the administration and conduct of the British Empire in Australia and in Kenya.
6. Could a free and fair market ever operate in the British Empire when Britain was highly industrialised yet many of its colonies were in the first stages of development and tied to trade exclusively with the mother country? Look at a review of Eric Hobsbawm’s ‘Industry and Empire’ on a book sale internet site (see below in the Additional Material section for full details). Professor Hobsbawm was a marxist historian. Why did he reject the view that markets were a good thing?
7. How is the basis of British law different from French law? Look up a synopsis of each country’s basic system on the internet. Is there any likelihood that one system might protect investment better than the other in your view?
8. To what extent was the British Empire a force for slavery, against slavery or both in your view? First look up the involvement of Bristol and Liverpool in the slave trade. Now look up the significance of the dates 1807 and 1833. Finally investigate the attitude of the Royal Navy towards the slave trade in the years after 1807.
9. Look up the meaning of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘transportation’. Look at case studies of Australia as a penal colony and the movement of workers from the Indian sub continent to Malaysia and Africa. Should such things be viewed as crimes or as necessary movement of labour in a different age?
10. Investigate ‘small wars’ fought by Britain in the Empire such as the Boer Wars of 1880-1 and 1899-1902, the war in Egypt 1882 in Sudan 1884-5, and the suppression of the Indian uprising (or ‘mutiny’) in 1857. Ask yourself why these wars were fought and who benefitted from their outcome.
11. How true is it to speak of a British enforced peace in the 19th Century? Look up on a timeline the number of wars fought in a) The world as a whole b) the British Empire in the years 1815 – 1900.
12. Having carried out the activities above try to decide of you a) generally agree with Ferguson b) generally disagree with Ferguson concerning the impact of the British Empire.