Bonds of Empire

West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-19-958855-8
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 593 g

Explores the implications of twentieth-century British imperial identity and culture beyond the dominions, so adds to recent historical work on the British World which has tended to concentrate on the former "white dominions".
Gives insight into Black British culture and society as well as that of the former British Caribbean as part of one social and cultural system
Investigates a great variety of topics in terms of imperial identity and British culture, so reveals significant links between topics (such as education, radio development, royal ceremonies) that are more often studied on their own.

In the first half of the twentieth century Britishness was an integral part of the culture that pervaded life in the colonial Caribbean. Caribbean peoples were encouraged to identify with social structures and cultural values touted as intrinsically British. Many middle-class West Indians of colour duly adopted Britishness as part of their own identity. Yet, as Anne Spry Rush explains in Bonds of Empire, even as they re-fashioned themselves, West Indians recast Britishness in their own image, basing it on hierarchical ideas of respectability that were traditionally British, but also on more modern expectations of racial and geographical inclusiveness. Britain became the focus of an imperial British identity, an identity which stood separate from, and yet intimately related to, their strong feelings for their tropical homelands.

Moving from the heights of empire in 1900 to the independence era of the 1960s, Rush argues that middle-class West Indians used their understanding of Britishness first to establish a place for themselves in the British imperial world, and then to negotiate the challenges of decolonization. Through a focus on education, voluntary organization, the challenges of war, radio broadcasting, and British royalty, she explores how this process worked in the daily lives of West Indians in both the Caribbean and the British Isles. Bonds of Empire thus traces West Indians' participation in a complex process of cultural transition as they manipulated Britishness and their relationship to it not only as colonial peoples but also as Britons

Zielgruppe

Historians and social scientists with an interest in imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, decolonization, culture, identity, migration, war and society, race and class, as well as those with a special interest in royalty, radio, education, and civil rights organizations.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rush, Anne Spry

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Postkoloniale Geschichte, Nationale Befreiung und Unabhängigkeit
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Part One: Fashioning Britishness
Prelude
1: Schooling Britons
2: Royalty and the Bonds of Empire
Part Two: The People's Empire: Mobilizing the Power of Britishness
Prelude
3: A Model for Secession? The 1936 Abdication Crisis
4: Hewing to Tradition: Education Debates in the 1930s and 1940s
5: Imperial Identities in Colonial Minds: The League of Coloured Peoples
6: 'One United Family': The World at War
7: Egalitarian Imperialism: The BBC and the West Indies 1920s-1940s
Part Three: Continuity within Change: Britishness in a New World
Prelude
8: 'A Bridge Between': The BBC's Colonial Service
9: Modern Raleighs in a New Elizabethan Age
10: Business as Usual: Caribbean Britishness in West Indian Schools
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Rush, Anne Spry
Anne Spry Rush's research interests include the nature of identity and culture in the modern British Empire, with an emphasis on imperial identity in the twentieth-century Caribbean and British Isles. She teaches history at the University of Maryland.