History

Missions and Empire

Norman Etherington (ed.)

The explosive expansion of Christianity in Africa and Asia during the last two centuries constitutes one of the most remarkable cultural transformations in the history of mankind. ... More

The explosive expansion of Christianity in Africa and Asia during the last two centuries constitutes one of the most remarkable cultural transformations in the history of mankind. Because it coincided with the spread of European economic and political hegemony, it tends to be taken for granted that Christian missions went hand in hand with imperialism and colonial conquest. In this book historians survey the relationship between Christian missions and the British Empire from the seventeenth century to the 1960s and treat the subject thematically, rather than regionally or chronologically. Many of these themes are treated at length for the first time, relating the work of missions to language, medicine, anthropology, and decolonization. Other important chapters focus on the difficult relationship between missionaries and white settlers, women and mission, and the neglected role of the indigenous evangelists who did far more than European or North American missionaries to spread the Christian religion — belying the image of Christianity as the ‘white man's religion’. Less

Native Claims: Indigenous Law against Empire, 1500–1920

Saliha Belmessous (ed.)

This book shows that from the moment European expansion commenced through to the 19th century, indigenous peoples from America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand drafted legal strategies ... More

This book shows that from the moment European expansion commenced through to the 19th century, indigenous peoples from America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand drafted legal strategies to contest dispossession. Colonisation was countered not only by force but also by ideas. Indigenous peoples made claims to territory using legal arguments drawn from their own understanding of a law which applies between peoples: that is, a kind of law of nations which was comparable to that being developed by Europeans. Confronted by indigenous claims, Europeans were forced to make rival claims. The story of indigenous resistance to European colonisation is, of course, well known. But legal resistance has been wrongly understood to be a relatively recent phenomenon. In the face of indigenous legal arguments, European justifications of colonisation should be understood not as an original and originating legal discourse but, at least in part, as a form of counter-claim. Indigenous claims show that a dialogue was being held between colonisers and colonised which can only be restored by staging all the participants and showing how they dealt with and reacted to each other. By enlightening the history of indigenous legal opposition to dispossession from the beginning of colonisation, this book will provide the general community with a means of engaging with the political challenges and responses posed by legal conflicts with indigenous peoples over the question of land. Less

An Ordinary Marriage: The World of a Gentry Family in Provincial Russia

Katherine Pickering Antonova

This is the story of a marriage between middle-income gentry landowners in nineteenth-century provincial Russia. The mother, Natalia Chikhacheva, oversaw serf labor and managed finances ... More

This is the story of a marriage between middle-income gentry landowners in nineteenth-century provincial Russia. The mother, Natalia Chikhacheva, oversaw serf labor and managed finances while the father, Andrei Chikhachev, raised the children, at a time when domestic ideology advocating a woman’s place in the home was at its height in European advice manuals. Andrei defined masculinity as a realm of intellectualism existing only symbolically “outside the home.” Thus the father’s place could be in charge of “moral education,” defined as an intellectual task. Managing estates that often barely yielded a livable income was a practical task and therefore considered less elevated, though still vitally important to the family’s interests. This book examines the daily activities and ideas of a family based on diaries and letters by the husband, wife, and son of the family. Chapters focus on the Chikhachevs’ social life, reading habits, attitudes toward illness and death, as well as their gendered marital roles and their reception of major ideas of their time, such as domesticity, Enlightenment, sentimentalism, and Romanticism. Less

The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume I: The Origins of Empire: British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century

Alaine Low, Wm Roger Louis

Nicholas Canny (ed.)

This book, the first volume of the Oxford History of the British Empire series, explores the origins of empire. It shows how and why England, and later Britain, became involved with ... More

This book, the first volume of the Oxford History of the British Empire series, explores the origins of empire. It shows how and why England, and later Britain, became involved with transoceanic navigation, trade, and settlement during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The chapters, by leading historians, both illustrate the interconnections between developments in Europe and overseas and offer specialist studies on every part of the world that was substantially affected by British colonial activity. As late as 1630, involvement with regions beyond the traditional confines of Europe was still tentative; by 1690 it had become a firm commitment. Less

The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century

Wm. Roger Louis

P. J. Marshall, Alaine Low (eds)

This book is volume II of a series detailing the history of the British Empire and it examines the history of British worldwide expansion from the Glorious Revolution of 1689 to the end ... More

This book is volume II of a series detailing the history of the British Empire and it examines the history of British worldwide expansion from the Glorious Revolution of 1689 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a crucial phase in the creation of the modern British Empire. This is the age of General Wolfe, Clive of India, and Captain Cook. Chapters trace and analyse the development and expansion of the British Empire over more than a century. They show how trade, warfare, and migration created an Empire, at first overwhelmingly in the Americas but later increasingly in Asia. Although the Empire was ruptured by the American Revolution, it survived and grew into an empire that was to dominate the world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Less

The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century

Wm Roger Louis

Andrew Porter (ed.)

The Oxford History of the British Empire is an assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. Volume III ... More

The Oxford History of the British Empire is an assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. Volume III covers the long nineteenth century, from the achievement of American independence in the 1780s to the eve of world war in 1914. This was the period of Britain's greatest expansion as both empire-builder and dominant world power. It is divided into two parts. The first contains thematic chapters, some focusing on Britain, others on areas at the imperial periphery, exploring those fundamental dynamics of British expansion that made imperial influence and rule possible. They also examine the economic, cultural, and institutional frameworks that gave shape to Britain's overseas empire. Part 2 is devoted to the principal areas of imperial activity overseas, including both white settler and tropical colonies. Chapters examine how British interests and imperial rule shaped individual regions' nineteenth century political and socio-economic history. Themes dealt with include the economics of empire, imperial institutions, defence, technology, imperial and colonial cultures, science and exploration. Less

The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume IV: The Twentieth Century

Wm Roger Louis

Judith Brown, Wm Roger Louis (eds)

This book, which is volume IV in a series, is an assessment of the British Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. This series helps ... More

This book, which is volume IV in a series, is an assessment of the British Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. This series helps to understand the end of Empire in relation to its beginning, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as for the rulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history. This 20th-century volume considers many aspects of the ‘imperial experience’ in the final years of the British Empire, culminating in the mid-century's rapid processes of decolonization. It seeks to understand the men who managed the empire, their priorities and vision, and the mechanisms of control and connection that held the empire together. There are chapters on imperial centres, on the geographical ‘periphery’ of empire, and on all its connecting mechanisms, including institutions and the flow of people, money, goods, and services. The volume also explores the experience of ‘imperial subjects’ in terms of culture, politics, and economics; an experience which culminated in the growth of vibrant, often new, national identities and movements and, ultimately, new nation-states. It concludes with the processes of decolonization, which reshaped the political map of the late 20th-century world. Less

The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume V: Historiography

Wm.Roger Louis

Robin Winks (ed.)

This series is an assessment of the British Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. From the founding of colonies in ... More

This series is an assessment of the British Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. From the founding of colonies in North America and the West Indies in the 17th century to the reversion of Hong Kong to China at the end of the 20th, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. This series aims to help with the understanding the end of Empire in relation to its beginning, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as for the rulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history. This fifth and final volume shows how opinions have changed dramatically over the generations about the nature, role, and value of imperialism generally, and the British Empire more specifically. Chapters discuss the many and diverse elements which have influenced writing on the Empire: the pressure of current events, access to primary sources, the creation of relevant university chairs, the rise of nationalism in former colonies, decolonization, and the Cold War. They demonstrate how the study of Empire has evolved from a narrow focus on constitutional issues to a wide-ranging enquiry about international relations, the uses of power, and impacts and counterimpacts between settler groups and native peoples. Less