The Empire Strikes Back?: The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century / Edition 1

by Andrew S. Thompson

Overview

‘The Empire Strikes Back' will inject the empire back into the domestic history of modern Britain. In the nineteenth century and for much of the twentieth century, Britain's empire was so large that it was truly the global superpower. Much of Africa, Asia and America had been subsumed. Britannia's tentacles had stretched both wide and deep. Culture, Religion, Health, Sexuality, Law and Order were all impacted in the dominated countries. ‘The Empire Strikes Back'shows how the dependent states were subsumed and then hit back, affecting in turn England itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780582438293
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/23/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrew Thompson is Senior Lecturer in Modern British History, and Pro-Dean for Learning and Teaching in the Arts Faculty, at the University of Leeds. His previous publications include Imperial Britain : The Empire in British Politics 1880-1932 (2000) and The Impact of the South African War, 1899-1902 (2002), co-edited with David Omissi.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

List of Tables and Figures

1. Elites

2. The Lower Middle Class and the Working Classes at Home

3. The Working Class at Work

4. The Working Class at Play

5. Women and Children

6. Domestic Politics

7. Metropolitan Economics

8. The Forging of British Identities

9. After-Effects

Afterword

Appendix

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

This wide-ranging and ambitious work begins from, but moves well beyond, the common observation that empire had a significant role in the making of modern Britain. Thompson weighs the relevant evidence from elites to the working classes, from women and children to international economics and domestic politics. In so doing he treats an enormous body of material with judicious insight. This book helps to bridge all-too divided hemispheres of the historical mind. It deserves close attention by specialist scholars as well as a prominent place on student reading lists.'

Saul Dubow, Sussex University

''This is a fine piece of work: perhaps the best book so far in its field. It will surely be seen as an essential undergraduate text in many British and Imperial History courses, and in some sub-fields of Politics, Sociology and Cultural Studies too.''

Stephen Howe

From the Publisher