Revisiting The British World

"Since the publication of Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis' ground-breaking Rediscovering the British World, there has not been a collection of essays that looks at the history of the British World from an all-round thematic perspective. This edited collection defines the British World as a global community in which members identified themselves predominantly as British and considered the United Kingdom (UK) to be at its centre. The chapters in the volume focus upon diverse aspects of British identity and its interrelation with the history of Britain's former settler-colonies and other regions of British settlement. Drawing upon new research from established scholars, early career researchers, and doctoral students, the edited collection aims to offer new voices and perspectives to the study of the British World. The book will appeal to both scholars and students of the history of the British World and British imperial history, as well as the national histories of Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, India, and the UK"--

Introduction -Revisiting the British world / Jatinder Mann and Iain Johnston-White -- "The history of this colony is one of dismemberment": territorial separation movements and new colonies in Australasia, 1820s-1900 / André Brett -- Intimacies amidst hierarchies- colonial encounters and the Sahib-subject relationship in the AngloIndian household / Sucharita Sen -- Reading settler-colonial discourses: an analysis of two Ontario public school history textbooks from 1921 / Danielle Lorenz -- Melbamania: Nellie Melba and celebrity in the British world / Karen Fox -- Vasco Loureiro- British world Bohemian / Paul Kiem -- "For gorsake, stop laughing! This is serious": the British world as a community of cartooning and satirical art / Richard Scully -- Agent of empire: Australia's tradition of imperial internationalism / William A. Stoltz -- The end of the British world and the redefinition of citizenship in Australia, Canada, and Aotearoa New Zealand, 1960s-1970s / Jatinder Mann -- The Antipodes at the crossroads: Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the great powers at the end of empire / Andrew Kelly -- Conclusion- Why revisit the British world? / Iain Johnston-White and Jatinder Mann -- Index.

The British victory on the Plains of Abraham in September 1759 and the subsequent Conquest of Canada were undoubtedly significant geopolitical events, but their nature and implications continue to be debated. Revisiting 1759 provides a fresh historical reappraisal of the Conquest and its aftermath using new approaches drawn from military, imperial, social, and Aboriginal history. This cohesive collection investigates many of the most hotly contested questions surrounding the Conquest: Was the battle itself a crucial turning point, or just one element in the global struggle between France and Great Britain? Did the battle's outcome reflect the superior strategy of General James Wolfe or rather errors on both sides? Did the Conquest alter the long-term trajectories of the French and British empires or simply confirm patterns well underway? How formative was the Conquest in defining the new British America and those now living under its rule? As this collection makes vividly clear, the Conquest's most profound consequences may in fact be quite different from those that have traditionally been emphasized.

This book takes issue with the likening of contemporary globalization to nineteenth century trade interdependence, in which the defining feature of contemporary globalization is the spread of global production networks, which were notably absent in the past. Maswood demonstrates that the emergence of global production networks (GPNs) was not a result of economic and trade liberalization, but instead due to neo-protectionist developments in the 1980s that acted as a catalyst to transform Japan’s nationally based production networks into the now ubiquitous GPNs. Through this case study of Japan, the author lays out a case for reconsidering the origins of globalization, and explores some of the consequences that are likely to flow from progressive evolutionary transition towards a global economy.

This book revisits the economic relationship that ties the UK and Ireland to the United States in the aftermath of the greatest economic crisis of the past fifty years. When considering recent developments to these economic links, it appears that oppositional forces are at work. On one hand, globalization and the rise of new economic powers may undermine the ties. Besides, Ireland’s and the UK’s European Union membership could also loosen their economic ties with the US. Conversely, the future Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement may well strengthen trade and investment links between the US and Europe. Are the economic bonds between the US, the UK and Ireland waning, as some pundits purport? Or are those claims overstated? Could their economic relationship simply be going through a process of change? Although there may not be a single and straightforward answer to these questions, the authors seek to address these issues and provide insight into the changing dynamics of this historic economic relationship.

The book critically analyzes the ongoing changes in the regional, intra-regional, and global dynamics of cooperation, from a multi-disciplinary and pluralist perspective. It is based on the insight that in a post-hegemonic world the formation of regions and the process of globalization can be largely disconnected from the orbit of the US, and that a plurality of power and worldviews has replaced US hegemony. In spite of these changes, most existing analyses of current changes in the world order still rely upon Western-centered approaches, and Westphalian thinking. Against this backdrop, the book proposes to advance a truly global IR understanding of the post-hegemonic world, and weaves together the pluralist and multi-disciplinary perspectives of scholars located all around the world.

This collection of essays is based upon the assumption that the British Empire was held together not merely by ties of trade and defence, but by a shared sense of British identity that linked British communities around the globe. Focusing on the themes of migration, identity and the media, this book is an exploration of these and other interconnected themes that help define the British World of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

This book argues that the prevailing view of colonialism – that it was a negative and destructive phenomenon – needs to be rethought. It focuses on the experiences of the South Indian working class, large numbers of which came to Malaya in the early years of the twentieth century, emigrating from socially, economically, and environmentally inhospitable south India. It examines the opportunities which colonialism presented for these people, highlighting also the British approach to colonialism in Malaya, an approach which emphasised conservativism and tradition, and which protected the interests of the Malay aristocrat classes and, by extension, the Malay masses in order to compensate for European economic dominance and the influx of a non-Malay labour force. Overall, the book demonstrates that the South Indians, a class whose identity, social existence, and prospects were inextricably linked to imperial processes, benefitted from colonialism, and should be viewed as an active transnational entity within a constructive system, rather than as passive victims of repressive, destructive forces.