An ABC of Queen Victoria's Empire offers a provocative rewriting of Mrs. Ernest Ames' ABCs for Baby Patriots (1899). Whimsically illustrated for the nursery or primary school child, Ames' book demonstrates how deeply imperialism reached into popular culture during Victoria's reign. This book presents a rather darker view of Victoria's empire, beginning with the wars in Afghanistan and ending with Zam-Zammeh, the large-bore cannon that Kipling's hero sat astride at the opening of his 1901 novel, Kim. It signposts some of the key events, concepts, places and people that shaped the turbulent ground of empire across the long 19th century, providing a serious counterweight to the notion of imperial conquest as child's play. With each letter accompanied by a crisp yet historically nuanced account of its subject, this unique account is the perfect primer for students taking courses on global, imperial and British history.
In this book 25 authors from the Global South (19) and the Global North (6) address conflicts, security, peace, gender, environment and development. Four parts cover I) peace research epistemology; II) conflicts, families and vulnerable people; III) peacekeeping, peacebuilding and transitional justice; and IV) peace and education. Part I deals with peace ecology, transformative peace, peaceful societies, Gandhi’s non-violent policy and disobedient peace. Part II discusses urban climate change, climate rituals, conflicts in Kenya, the sexual abuse of girls, farmer-herder conflicts in Nigeria, wartime sexual violence facing refugees, the traditional conflict and peacemakingprocess of Kurdish tribes, Hindustani family shame, and communication with Roma. Part III analyses norms of peacekeeping, violent non-state actors in Brazil, the art of peace in Mexico, grass-roots post-conflict peacebuilding in Sulawesi, hydrodiplomacyin the Indus River Basin, the Rohingya refugee crisis, and transitional justice. Part IV assesses SDGs and peace in India, peace education in Nepal, and infrastructure-based development and peace in West Papua. • Peer-reviewed texts prepared for the 27th Conference of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) in 2018 in Ahmedabad in India.• Contributions from two pioneers of global peace research:a foreword by Johan Galtung from Norway and a preface by Betty Reardon from the United States.• Innovative case studies by peace researchers on decolonising conflicts, security, peace, gender, environment and development in the Anthropocene, the new epoch of earth and human history.• New theoretical perspectives by senior and junior scholars from Europe and Latin America on peace ecology, transformative peace, peaceful societies, and Gandhi’s non-violence policy.• Case studies on climate change, SDGs and peace in India; conflicts in Kenya, Nigeria, South Sudan, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico; Roma in Hungary;the refugee crisis in Bangladesh; peace action in Indonesia and India/Pakistan; and peace education in Nepal.
Bestselling author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera explores the global legacy of the British Empire, and the ways it continues to influence economics, politics, and culture around the world. 2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to the shaping international law. Even today, 1 in 3 people drive on the left hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. Following in the footsteps of his bestselling book Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, Empireworld explores the ways in which British Empire has come to shape the modern world Sanghera visits Barbados, where he uncovers how Caribbean nations are still struggling to emerge from the disadvantages sown by transatlantic slavery. He examines how large charities--like Save the Children and the World Bank--still see the world through the imperial eyes of their colonial founders, and how the political instability of nations, such as Nigeria, for instance, can be traced back to tensions seeded in their colonial foundations. And from the British Empire's role in the transportation of 12.5 million Africans during the Atlantic slave trade, to the 35 million Indians who died due to famine caused by British policy, the British Empire, as Sanghera reveals, was responsible for some of the largest demographic changes in human history. Economic, legal and political systems across the world continue to function along the lines originally drawn by the British Empire, and cultural, sexual, psychological, linguistic, demographic, and educational norms originally established by imperial Britons continue to shape our lives. British Empire may have peaked a century ago, and it may have been mostly dismantled by 1997, but in this major new work, Sathnam Sanghera ultimately shows how the largest empire in world history still exerts influence over planet Earth in all sorts of silent and unsilent ways.
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.
Building on the author’s 2012 book, Lee Kuan Yew’s Strategic Thought, this new book presents a comprehensive overview of Lee Kuan Yew’s strategic thought over the course of his entire life. It analyses the factors underlying Lee Kuan Yew’s thinking, discusses his own writings and speeches, and shows how his thinking on foreign policy, security and international relations evolved. It also appraises writing about Lee Kuan Yew and memorialisation of him, assessing how views of his legacy have changed and continue to change.
How rebellious colonies changed British attitudes to empire Insurgent Empire shows how Britain’s enslaved and colonial subjects were active agents in their own liberation. What is more, they shaped British ideas of freedom and emancipation back in the United Kingdom. Priyamvada Gopal examines a century of dissent on the question of empire and shows how British critics of empire were influenced by rebellions and resistance in the colonies, from the West Indies and East Africa to Egypt and India. In addition, a pivotal role in fomenting resistance was played by anticolonial campaigners based in London, right at the heart of empire. Much has been written on how colonized peoples took up British and European ideas and turned them against empire when making claims to freedom and self-determination. Insurgent Empire sets the record straight in demonstrating that these people were much more than victims of imperialism or, subsequently, the passive beneficiaries of an enlightened British conscience—they were insurgents whose legacies shaped and benefited the nation that once oppressed them.
