Britain The Empire And The World At The Great Exhibition Of 1851

Britain, the Empire, and the World at the Great Exhibition is the first book to situate the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 in a truly global context. Addressing national, imperial, and international themes, this collection of essays considers the significance of the Exhibition both for its British hosts and their relationships to the wider world, and for participants from around the globe. How did the Exhibition connect London, England, important British colonies, and significant participating nation-states including Russia, Greece, Germany and the Ottoman Empire? How might we think about the exhibits, visitors and organizers in light of what the Exhibition suggested about Britain’s place in the global community? Contributors from various academic disciplines answer these and other questions by focusing on the many exhibits, publications, visitors and organizers in Britain and elsewhere. The essays expand our understanding of the meanings, roles and legacies of the Great Exhibition for British society and the wider world, as well as the ways that this pivotal event shaped Britain’s and other participating nations’ conceptions of and locations within the wider nineteenth-century world.

"The book challenges the common view that the Exhibition symbolized peace, progress, prosperity, and the emergence of an industrial middle class. Auerbach suggests instead that the Great Exhibition became a cultural battlefield on which proponents of different visions of industrialization, modernization, and internationalism fought for ascendancy in the struggle for a new national identity."--BOOK JACKET.

Conceived as a showcase for Britain's burgeoning manufacturing industries and the exotic products of its Empire, the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace was Britain's first truly national spectacle. Michael Leapman explores how the exhibition came into being; the key characters who made it happen (from Prince Albert, who was credited with the idea, to Thomas Cook, whose cheap railway trips ensured its accessibility to all); and the fascinating tales behind the exhibits that fired the imagination of the era. 'The best kind of popular history: exact, imaginative and full of fun.' Sunday Telegraph `Splendid... Michael Leapman brings a child's delight to the wonders of the Exhibition and his enthusiastic prose makes his readers feel they are almost walking down its aisles.' Mail on Sunday `Entertaining and engaging' Independent

Essay from the year 2018 in the subject History Europe - Other Countries - Modern Times, Absolutism, Industrialization, grade: 1,7, University of Sussex (School of History, Philosophy and Art History), language: English, abstract: On the 1st of May in 1851, the opening of the Great Exhibition marked the beginning of the creation of a corporal British identity which was drafted through dissociation from other foreign stereotypes. Although Prince Albert, head of the organising Royal Commission, wanted the Great Exhibition to create international family-like ties among the exhibiting states, it stressed the differences between those nations and supported rising nationalism instead. The very fact that the Royal Commission structured the exhibition into the United Kingdom, its colonies and foreign countries, revealed its focus on British instead of global achievements. However, as well as the exhibition’s location, the manner in which it was presented is also of great significance, since it demonstrated superiority.

From the Great Exhibition's showcasing of British national achievement in 1851 to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Stratford in 2012 and on to Brexit, an insightful exploration of the transformation of modern Britain This revised and updated fourth and final volume in the concise Brief History of Britain series begins in the specially-constructed Crystal Palace, three times the length of St Paul's Cathedral, in Hyde Park at the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century. The Great Exhibition it housed marked a high point of British national achievement, at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, at the heart of a great empire, with Queen Victoria still to reign for fifty years. It was a time of confidence in the future, and exuberant patriotism for Britain's role in it. The beginning of the Second World War in 1939 marks a turning point because of the great change it heralded in Britain's global standing. At its peak, protected by the world's greatest navy, the British Empire stretched from Australasia to Canada, from Hong Kong and India to South Africa, and from Jamaica to the Falklands. Now the empire is no more: a fundamental change not only for the world, but also for Britain. The Second World War had been won, but it had exhausted Britain and marked the beginning of its national decline. Black links cultural and political developments closely - transport, health, migration and economic and demographic factors - in order to make clear how porous and changeable the manifestations of national civilisation can be, and to make sense of themes such as the triumph of town over country, Britain's international clout and the shift from the dominance of the market at the turn of the nineteenth century to the growing significance of the state. Importantly, he also looks at how public history has presented the nation's past, and how the changing and different ways we look at that past are central aspects of our shared history.

These essays expose how meaning has been produced around the Great Exhibition. It contains readings of the historical record of the exhibition, exploring the use of industrial knowledge & the contested definitions of nation & colony.

The exhibitions of the Victorian and Edwardian eras are the lens through which this book examines the economic, cultural, and social forces that helped define Britain and the Empire. It focuses on exhibitions in England, Australia, and India from the Great Exhibition to the Festival of Empire.