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The historiography of the British Empire refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to study the history of the British Empire.

Scholars have long studied the Empire, looking at the causes for its formation, its relations to the French and other empires, and the kinds of people and their ideas who became imperialists or anti-imperialists. The history of the breakdown of the Empire has attracted scholars of the United States (which broke away in 1776), as well as India (1947) and the African colonies (1960s). In recent years scholars have paid special attention to its impact on the native peoples of Asia and Africa who became part of its domain, with respect to the impact on their economy, social structure, demography, politics and world view.

Idea of Empire

Armitage (2008) traces the emergence of a British imperial ideology from the time of Henry VIII to that of Robert Walpole in the 1720s and 1730s. Using a close reading of English, Scottish and Irish authors from Sir Thomas Smith (1513-77) to David Hume (1711-1776), Armitage argues that the imperial ideology was both as a critical agent in the formation of a British state from three kingdoms and an essential bond between the state and the transatlantic colonies. Armitage thus links the concerns of the 'New British History' with that of the Atlantic history. Before 1700 Armitage finds that contested English and Scottish versions of state and empire delayed the emergence of a unitary imperial ideology. Furthermore the notions of republicanism produced in the writers a tension between "empire and liberty" and "imperium and dominium." However political economists Nicholas Barbon and Charles Davenant in the late 17th century emphasized the significance of commerce to the success of the state, arguing that "trade depended on liberty, and that liberty could therefore be the foundation of empire."^[1] To overcome competing versions of 'empires of the seas' within Britain, Parliament undertook the regulation of the Irish economy, the Act of Union (1707) and the formation of a unitary and organic 'British' empire of the sea. Walpole's opponents in the 1730s in the "country party" and in the American colonies developed an alternative vision of empire that would be "Protestant, commercial, maritime and free."^[2] Walpole's did not ensure the promised "liberty" to the colonists colonies because he was intent on subordinating all colonial economic activity to the mercantilist advantages of the metropolis. Anti-imperial critiques emerged from Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, presaging the republicanism that swept the American colonies in the 1770s and led to the creation of a rival empire.

Regions

United States

Although American historians have always paid attention to the negative causes of the revolt by which the 13 colonies broke away from the Empire, around 1900 the "Imperial School," including Herbert L. Osgood, George Louis Beer, Charles M. Andrews and Lawrence Gipson took a highly favorable view of the benefits achieved by the economic integration of the Empire.^[3]

Slavery

One of the most controversial aspects of the Empire is its role in first promoting and then ending slavery. In the 18th century British merchant ships were the largest element in the "Middle Passage" which transported millions of slaves to the Western Hemisphere. Most of those who survived the journey wound up in the Caribbean, where the Empire had highly profitable sugar colonies, and the living conditions were bad. (The plantation owners lived in Britain.) Parliament ended the the international transportation of slaves in 1807, and used the Royal navy to enforce that ban. In 1833 it bought out the plantation owners and banned slavery. Historians before the 1940s argued that moralistic reformers such as William Wilberforce were primarily responsible.

Historical revisionism arrived with West Indian historian Eric Williams in Capitalism and Slavery (1944), rejected this moral explanation and substituted a Marxist interpretation. He argued that abolition was now more profitable, for a century of sugar cane raising had exhausted the soil of the islands, and the plantations had become unprofitable. It was more profitable to sell the slaves to the government than to keep up operations. The 1807 prohibition of the international trade, Williams argued, prevented French expansion on other islands. Meanwhile British investors turned to Asia, where labor was so plentiful that slavery was unnecessary. Williams went on to argue that slavery played a major role in making Britain prosperous. The high profits from the slave trade, he said, helped finance the Industrial Revolution. Britain enjoyed prosperity because of the capital thieved from the unpaid work of slaves.

More recently historians have challenged Williams. They have shown that slavery remained profitable in the 1830s because of innovations in agriculture so the profit motive was not central to abolition.^[4] Richardson (1998) finds Williams's claims regarding the Industrial Revolution are exaggerated, for profits from the slave trade amounted to less than 1% of domestic investment in Britain. Richardson further challenges claims (by African scholars) that the slave trade caused widespread depopulation and economic distress in Africa—indeed that it caused the "underdevelopment" of Africa. Admitting the horrible suffering of slaves, he notes that many Africans benefited directly, because the first stage of the trade was always firmly in the hands of Africans. European slave ships waited at ports to purchase cargoes of people who were captured in the hinterland by African dealers and tribal leaders. Richardson finds that the "terms of trade" (how much the ship owners paid for the slave cargo) moved heavily in favor of the Africans after about 1750. That is, indigenous elites inside West and Central Africa made large and growing profits from slavery, thus increasing their wealth and power.^[5]

India

Debate continues about the economic impact of British imperialism on India. The issue was actually raised by conservative British politician Edmund Burke who in the 1780s vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continues this line of attack, saying the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of "plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of Mughal India. Ray accuses the British of depleting the food and money stocks and imposing high taxes that helped cause the terrible famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal.^[6]

P. J. Marshall shows that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy. Marshall argues the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past. British control was delegated largely through regional Mughal rulers and was sustained by a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the eighteenth century. Marshall notes the British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation.^[7] Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation, supported by many scholars in India and the West, in which the British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in which their rise to power depended upon excellent cooperation with Indian elites. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still rejected by many historians working in India, who prefer to 'bash the British'.^[8]

Basic Bibliography

• Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000) 238pp
• Beer, George Louis. The Old Colonial System, 1660-1754 (1913) full text online
• Brendon, Piers. "A Moral Audit of the British Empire." History Today, (Oct 2007), Vol. 57 Issue 10, pp 44–47, online at EBSCO
• Brendon, Piers. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 (2008)
• Louis, William Roger (general editor), The Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols. (1998–99).
  • vol 1 "The Origins of Empire" ed. by Nicholas Canny (1998)
  • vol 2 "The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall (1998) excerpt and text search
  • vol 3 The Nineteenth Century edited by William Roger Louis, Alaine M. Low, Andrew Porter; (1998). 780 pp.. online edition, also excerpt and text search
  • vol 4 The Twentieth Century edited by Judith M. Brown, (1998). 773 pp. online edition also excerpt and text search
  • vol 5 "Historiography" ed, by Robin W. Winks (1999) excerpt and text search
• Marshall, P. J. (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996). excerpt and text search
• Stern, Philip J. "History and Historiography of the English East India Company: Past, Present, and Future," History Compass (2009) Volume 7 Issue 4, pp 1146-1180

Bibliography

Overviews

• Beinart, William, ed. Environment and Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion) (2007)
• Black, Jeremy. The British Seaborne Empire (2004)
• Brendon, Piers. "A Moral Audit of the British Empire." History Today, (Oct 2007), Vol. 57 Issue 10, pp 44–47, online at EBSCO
• Brendon, Piers. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 (2008)
• Bryant, Arthur. The History of Britain and the British Peoples, 3 vols. (1984–90), popular.
• Buckner, Phillip, ed. Canada and the British Empire (2010)
• Cain, P. J. and A.G. Hopkins. British Imperialism, 1688-2000 (2nd ed. 2001), 739pp, detailed economic history that presents the new "gentlemanly capitalists" thesis excerpt and text search
• Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850 (2004), 464pp excerpts and online search from Amazon.com
• Ferguson, Niall. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002), excerpt and text search
• Hyam, Ronald. Britain's Imperial Century, 1815-1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (1993). excerpt and text search
• James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1997).
• Judd, Denis. Empire: The British Imperial Experience, From 1765 to the Present (1996). online edition
• Lloyd; T. O. The British Empire, 1558-1995 Oxford University Press, 1996 online edition
• Louis, William. Roger (general editor), The Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols. (1998–99).
  • vol 1 "The Origins of Empire" ed. by Nicholas Canny
  • vol 2 "The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall excerpt and text search
  • vol 3 The Nineteenth Century edited by William Roger Louis, Alaine M. Low, Andrew Porter; (1998). 780 pgs. online edition, also excerpt and text search
  • vol 4 The Twentieth Century edited by Judith M. Brown, (1998). 773 pgs online edition also excerpt and text search
  • vol 5 "Historiography" ed, by Robin W. Winks (1999) excerpt and text search
• Marshall, P.J. (ed.) The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996). excerpt and text search
• Robinson, Howard . The Development of the British Empire (1922), 465pp online edition
• Rose, J. Holland, A. P. Newton and E. A. Benians (gen. eds.), The Cambridge History of the British Empire, 9 vols. (1929–61); vol 1: "The Old Empire from the Beginnings to 1783" 934pp online edition Volume I
• Schreuder, Deryck, and Stuart Ward, eds. Australia's Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2010)
• Smith, Simon C. British Imperialism 1750-1970 (1998). brief

Atlases and reference

• Bartholomew, John. Atlas of the British empire throughout the world (1868 edition) online 1868 edition; (1877 edition) online 1877 edition, the maps are poorly reproduced
• Bayly, C. A. ed. Atlas of the British Empire (1989). survey by scholars; heavily illustrated
• Dalziel, Nigel. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire (2006), 144 pp excerpts and online search from amazon.com
• Faunthorpe, John Pincher. Geography of the British colonies and foreign possessions (1874) online edition
• Lucas, Charles Prestwood. A Historical Geography of the British Colonies: part 2: West Indies (1890) online edition
• Lucas, Charles Prestwood. A Historical Geography of the British Colonies: part 4: South and East Africa (1900) online edition
• Olson, James S. and Robert S. Shadle; Historical Dictionary of the British Empire (1996) online edition
• Porter, A. N. Atlas of British Overseas Expansion (1994)

Political, economic and intellectual studies

• Andrews, Kenneth R. Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630 (1984).
• Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000). online edition
• Armitage, David, 'Greater Britain: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis?' American Historical Review, 104 (1999), 427–45. in JSTOR
• Armitage, David, ed. Theories of Empire, 1450–1800 (1998).
• Armitage, David, and M. J. Braddick, eds. The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, (2002)
• Barker, Sir Ernest, The Ideas and Ideals of the British Empire (1941).
• Baumgart, W. Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880-1914 (1982)
• Bayly, C. A. Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780-1831 (1989).
• Bennett, George (ed.), The Concept of Empire: Burke to Attlee, 1774–1947 (1953).
• Blaut, J. M. The Colonizers' Model of the World 1993
• Cain, P. J. and A.G. Hopkins. British Imperialism, 1688-2000 (2nd ed. 2001), 739pp, detailed economic history that presents the new "gentlemanly capitalists" thesis
  • Cain, P. J.. and A. G. Hopkins. "Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas I. The Old Colonial System, 1688-1850," Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 39, 4 (1986): 501-525 in JSTOR
  • Cain, P. J.. and A. G. Hopkins. "Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas II: New Imperialism, 1850-1945," The Economic History Review Vol. 40, No. 1 (Feb., 1987), pp. 1–26 in JSTOR
  • Cain, P. J.. and A. G. Hopkins. "The Political Economy of British Expansion Overseas, 1750-1914," The Economic History ReviewVol. 33, No. 4 (Nov., 1980), pp. 463–490 in JSTOR
• Darby, Philip. The Three Faces of Imperialism: British and American Approaches to Asia and Africa, 1870-1970 (1987)
• Doyle, Michael W. Empires (1986). excerpt and text search
• Dumett, Raymond E. Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New Debate on Empire. (1999). 234 pp.
• Elliott, J.H., Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (2006), a major interpretation excerpt and text search
• Gallagher, John, and Ronald Robinson. "The Imperialism of Free Trade" The Economic History Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1953), pp. 1–15 in JSTOR, online free at Mt. Holyoke highly influential interpretation in its day
• Harlow, V. T. The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–1793, 2 vols. (1952–64).
• Heinlein, Frank. British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945-1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind (2002). excerpt and text search
• Herbertson, A. J. The Oxford Survey of the British Empire, (1914) online edition
• Ingram, Edward. The British Empire as a World Power: Ten Studies (2001) excerpt and text search
• Jackson, Ashley. British Empire and the Second World War (2006)
• James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1994).
• Johnson, Robert. British Imperialism (2003). historiography excerpt and text search
• Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (1976).
• Kenny, Kevin, ed. Ireland and the British Empire (2004). excerpt and text search
• Koehn, Nancy F. The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire (1994) online edition
• Knorr, Klaus E., British Colonial Theories 1570–1850 (1944).
• Louis, William Roger. The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism (1984) online edition
• Louis, William Roger. Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941-1945 (1978) online edition
• Marshall, Peter, and Glyn Williams, eds. The British Atlantic Empire before the American Revolution (1980) online edition
• Mehta, Uday Singh, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (1999).
• Webster, Anthony. Gentlemen Capitalists: British Imperialism in South East Asia, 1770-1890 (1998) excerpt and text search

Social and cultural studies

• August, Thomas G. The Selling of the Empire: British and French Imperialist Propaganda, 1890-1940 (1985)
• Bailyn, Bernard, and Philip D. Morgan (eds.), Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (1991)
• Brantlinger, Patrick. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914 (1988).
• Broich, John. "Engineering the Empire: British Water Supply Systems and Colonial Societies, 1850-1900." Journal of British Studies 2007 46(2): 346-365. Issn: 0021-9371 Fulltext: at Ebsco
• Clayton, Martin. and Bennett Zon. Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s-1940s (2007) excerpt and text search
• Constantine, Stephen. "British Emigration to the Empire-commonwealth since 1880: from Overseas Settlement to Diaspora?" Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 2003 31(2): 16-35. ISSN 0308-6534
• Etherington, Norman. Missions and Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2008) excerpt and text search, on Protestant missions
• Hall, Catherine, and Sonya O. Rose. At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World (2007) excerpt and text search
• Hall, Catherine. Civilising Subjects: Colony and Metropole in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (2002)
• Hodgkins, Christopher. Reforming Empire: Protestant Colonialism and Conscience in British Literature (U of Missouri Press, 2002) online edition
• Hyam, Ronald. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (1990).
• Karatani, Rieko. Defining British Citizenship: Empire, Commonwealth, and Modern Britain (2003) online edition
• Lassner, Phyllis. Colonial Strangers: Women Writing the End of the British Empire (2004) online edition also excert and text search
• Lazarus, Neil, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies (2004)
• Levine, Philippa, ed. Gender and Empire (2004). excerpt and text search
• McDevitt, Patrick F. May the Best Man Win: Sport, Masculinity, and Nationalism in Great Britain and the Empire, 1880-1935 (2004). excerpt and text search
• Morgan, Philip D. and Hawkins, Sean, ed. Black Experience and the Empire (2004). excerpt and text search
• Morris, Jan. The Spectacle of Empire: Style, Effect and Pax Britannica (1982).
• Porter, Andrew. Religion Versus Empire?: British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914 (2004)
• Potter, Simon J. News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System. Clarendon, 2003
• Price, Richard. "One Big Thing: Britain, its Empire, and Their Imperial Culture." Journal of British Studies 2006 45(3): 602-627. Issn: 0021-9371 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Rubinstein, W. D. Capitalism, Culture, and Decline in Britain, 1750-1990 (1993),
• Rüger, Jan. "Nation, Empire and Navy: Identity Politics in the United Kingdom 1887-1914" Past & Present 2004 (185): 159-187. ISSN 0031-2746 online
• Sauerberg, Lars Ole. Intercultural Voices in Contemporary British Literature: The Implosion of Empire (2001) online edition
• Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing and Imperial Administration (1993). excerpt and text search
• Trollope, Joanna. Britannia's Daughters: Women of the British Empire (1983).
• Wilson, Kathleen. The Island Race: Englishness, Empire, and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (2003).
• Wilson, Kathleen, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture Identity, and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840 (2004)

Primary sources

• Board of Education. Educational Systems of the Chief Crown Colonies and Possessions of the British Empire (1905). 340pp online edition
• Boehmer, Elleke ed. Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature, 1870-1918 (1998) online edition
• Brooks, Chris. and Peter Faulkner (eds.), The White Man's Burdens: An Anthology of British Poetry of the Empire (Exeter UP, 1996).
• Hall, Catherine. ed. Cultures of Empire: A Reader: Colonizers in Britain and the Empire in the 19th and 20th Centuries (2000) excerpt and text search

Historiography and memory

• Adams, James Truslow. "On the Term 'British Empire,'" American Historical Review, 22 (1927), 485–9; in JSTOR
• Barone, Charles A. Marxist Thought on Imperialism: Survey and Critique (1985)
• Cannadine, David, "'Big Tent' Historiography: Transatlantic Obstacles and Opportunities in Writing the History of Empire," Common Knowledge 11.3 (2005) 375-392 in Project Muse
• Cannadine, David. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (2002) excerpt and text search
• Colley, Linda. "What Is Imperial History Now?" in David Cannadine, ed. What Is History Now? (2002), 132–47.
• Pocock, J. G. A. 'The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of the Unknown Subject', American Historical Review, 87 (1982), 311–36.
• Prakash, Gyan. “Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, 2 (1990): 383-408 in JSTOR
• Stern, Philip J. "History and Historiography of the English East India Company: Past, Present, and Future," History Compass (2009) Volume 7 Issue 4, pp 1146-1180
• Wilson, Kathleen, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840 (2004). excerpt and text search

External links

• primary sources and older secondary sources

Notes

1. ^ Armitage (2000) p. 143
2. ^ Armitage (2000) p. 173
3. ^ Ian Tyrrell, "Making Nations/Making States: American Historians in the Context of Empire," Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 3, (Dec., 1999), pp. 1015-1044 in JSTOR
4. ^ J.R. Ward, "The British West Indies in the Age of Abolition," in P.J. Marshall, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century (1998) pp 415-39.
5. ^ David Richardson, "The British Empire and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1660-1807," in P.J. Marshall, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century (1998) pp 440-64.
6. ^ Rajat Kanta Ray, "Indian Society and the Establishment of British Supremacy, 1765-1818," in The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp 508-29
7. ^ Professor Ray agrees that the East India Company inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of the produce of Indian cultivators.
8. ^ P.J. Marshall, "The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700-1765," in The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall, (1998), pp 487-507

See also

• British Empire