The Round Table Movement and the Fall of the 'Second' British Empire (1909-1919)
The Round Table Movement and the Fall of the 'Second' British Empire (1909-1919)

Author: Andrea Bosco

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2017-01-06

Total Pages: 565

ISBN-13: 1443869996

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In spite of the general phobia of federalism, there is a strong federalist trend within British political culture. In three very different historical contexts, federalism inspired the action of political movements such as the Imperial Federation League, the Round Table and the Federal Union. Indeed, it was regarded as the solution to problems arising from the first signs of the possible collapse of Great Britain and its Empire. The Round Table Movement played a particularly interesting role in this regard, attempting to reverse the rapid and inexorable decline of the British Empire. It was a political organisation with roots in all the major peripheries of the Empire and almost unlimited financial resources. This volume discusses the strategies and means employed by the group in order to maintain the British Empire’s global prominence. The book’s main argument is that we did not have a “British century” – the nineteenth – and an “American century” – the twentieth – but, rather, four centuries of Anglo–Saxon supremacy, which witnessed the affirmation of the national principle – expression of the Continental political tradition – and its overcoming through its opposite, the federal principle, the expression of the insular political tradition.

Democracy, Federalism, the European Revolution, and Global Governance
Democracy, Federalism, the European Revolution, and Global Governance

Author: Andrea Bosco

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2020-06-10

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 1527554457

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The European Union is facing today the greatest crisis since its creation. Brexit could mean not only the reversal of its steady enlargement—from 6 to 28 member states—but also the beginning of an inexorable decline leading to its disintegration. However, few today seem to recollect that it was precisely the British who were the first to promulgate the political culture which inspired the European Union’s construction—democracy and federalism—and the first who tried to realise, in June 1940, a European federation on the basis of an Anglo-French union. This volume traces the fundamental stages of the European unification process, placing it in relation to the wider process of world economic and political integration. In particular, it analyses the historical significance of the European Revolution, which is identified in the overcoming of the nation state—namely the modern political formula which institutionalised the political division of mankind—and the birth of the first truly international state. The universal historical significance of the European Revolution lies in its exportability—as for the other great European revolutions—and, therefore, its potential as progressively extensible to all the states of the planet. Europe was indeed the first region of the world where the barriers between national states fell, and a post-national political identity emerged, complementary to national political identities. It is, in fact, in the context of the European Union that democracy beyond the borders of the nation state has first been realized, constituting a guiding principle for global governance.

Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia
Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia

Author: Priyasha Saksena

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-06-09

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0192866583

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What constitutes a sovereign state in the international legal sphere? This question has been central to international law for centuries. Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia provides a compelling exploration of the history of sovereignty through an analysis of the jurisdictional politics involving a specific set of historical legal entities. Governed by local rulers, the princely states of colonial South Asia were subject to British paramountcy whilst remaining legally distinct from directly ruled British India. Their legal status and the extent of their rights remained the subject of feverish debates through the entirety of British colonial rule. This book traces the ways in which the language of sovereignty shaped the discourse surrounding the legal status of the princely states to illustrate how the doctrine of sovereignty came to structure political imagination in colonial South Asia and the framework of the modern Indian state. Opening with a survey of the place of the princely states in the colonial structures of South Asia, Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia goes on to illustrate how international lawyers, British politicians, colonial officials, rulers and bureaucrats of princely states, and anti-colonial nationalists in British India used definitions of sovereignty to construct political orders in line with their interests and aspirations. By invoking the vernacular of sovereignty in contrasting ways to support their differing visions of imperial and world order, these actors also attempted to reconfigure the boundaries among the spheres of the national, the imperial, and the international. Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, debates and disputes over the princely states continually defined and redefined the concept of sovereignty and international legitimacy in South Asia. Using rich material from the colonial archives,Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia conveys an understanding of the history of sovereignty and the construction of the modern Indian nation-state that is still relevant today. A riveting read, this book will be of considerable interest and importance to scholars of international law and South Asia, legal historians, and political scientists.

The Quest for Security
The Quest for Security

Author: Jesse Tumblin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-10-31

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1108498744

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Colonial hierarchy and race fueled rapid militarization in the British Empire that shaped the violent course of the twentieth century. This innovative study reveals the colonial backstory of a century that witnessed total war, resulting in new political norms that enthrone 'national security' as the dominating feature of contemporary politics.

South Africa, Race and the Making of International Relations
South Africa, Race and the Making of International Relations

Author: Vineet Thakur

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-01-17

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1786614650

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This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations. Conventional, western histories of the discipline point to 1919 as the year of the ‘birth of the discipline’ with two seminal initiatives – setting up of the first Chair of IR at Aberystwyth and the founding of the Institute of International Relations on the side-lines of the Paris Peace Conference. From these events, International Relations is argued to have been established as a path to create peace in the post-War era and facilitated through a scientific study of international affairs. International Relations was therefore, both a field of study and knowledge production and a plan of action. This pathbreaking book challenges these claims by presenting an alternative narrative of International Relations. In this book, we make three interconnected arguments. First, we argue that the natal moment in the founding of IR is not World War I – as is generally believed – but the Anglo Boer War. Second, we argue that the ideas, methods and institutions that led to the making of IR were first thrashed out in South Africa – in Johannesburg, in fact. Finally, this South African genealogy of IR, we show in the book, allows us to properly investigate the emergence of academic IR at the interstices of race, Empire and science.

The International Thought of Alfred Zimmern
The International Thought of Alfred Zimmern

Author: Tomohito Baji

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-11

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 3030662144

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This book is a comprehensive examination into the shifting international thought of Alfred Zimmern, a Grecophile intellectual, one of the most prominent liberal internationalists and the world’s first professor of IR. Identifying the writings of Burke and cultural Zionism as two important ideological sources that defined his project for empire and global order, this book argues that Zimmern can best be understood as an apostle of Commonwealth. It shows that while his proposals changed from cosmopolitan democracy to Euro-Atlanticism and to world federal government, they were constantly shaped by the organizing principles of a professedly universal British Commonwealth. It was the empire transhistorically chained to classical Athens.

A Cultural History of the British Empire
A Cultural History of the British Empire

Author: John MacKenzie

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2022-12-06

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 0300268815

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A compelling history of British imperial culture, showing how it was adopted and subverted by colonial subjects around the world As the British Empire expanded across the globe, it exported more than troops and goods. In every colony, imperial delegates dispersed British cultural forms. Facilitated by the rapid growth of print, photography, film, and radio, imperialists imagined this new global culture would cement the unity of the empire. But this remarkably wide-ranging spread of ideas had unintended and surprising results. In this groundbreaking history, John M. MacKenzie examines the importance of culture in British imperialism. MacKenzie describes how colonized peoples were quick to observe British culture—and adapted elements to their own ends, subverting British expectations and eventually beating them at their own game. As indigenous communities integrated their own cultures with the British imports, the empire itself was increasingly undermined. From the extraordinary spread of cricket and horse racing to statues and ceremonies, MacKenzie presents an engaging imperial history—one with profound implications for global culture in the present day.

The British Empire through buildings
The British Empire through buildings

Author: John M. MacKenzie

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2020-03-09

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1526145952

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Imperialism is strikingly represented in its buildings. This work illuminates the dispersal of colonial culture and religious forms, social classes, and racial divisions over two centuries, from the establishment of colonial rule to a post-colonial world. It will be a vital reading for all students of imperial history and global material culture.

England's Response to Hitler in the 1930s
England's Response to Hitler in the 1930s

Author: David M. Valladares

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2023-05-05

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1527504573

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This text explores the inner workings of the ‘Cliveden Set’. Analysing the political tactics used by the group, this book carefully unpicks the strategic moves played by aristocrats within 1930’s Britain. Considered to be a scapegoat for Britain’s Appeasement Policy by many historians, the Cliveden Set utilized their influence to encourage a British foreign policy that supported Hitler’s rearmament and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia. This book would be beneficial to all academics with a keen interest in politics, history and social structures. Researchers and historians will also enjoy the deep analysis of the dynamic created by this group.

International Organizations and Global Civil Society
International Organizations and Global Civil Society

Author: Daniel Laqua

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-03-21

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1350055611

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The Union of International Associations (UIA) was founded in 1910, aiming to coordinate the relations and interests of international organizations across the world. Its long history makes it a prism through which to study the field of international organizations and its dynamics. Bringing together experts from fields including history, political science and international relations, architecture, historical sociology, digital humanities and information studies, International Organizations and Global Civil Society is the first scholarly book to cover both the UIA's early years and its more recent past. Key issues explored include the UIA's importance for the field of scientific internationalism, the relations between the UIA and other international organizations, and the changing position of the UIA when facing geopolitical challenges such as totalitarianism, the World Wars and the Cold War. This important book addresses a number of current scholarly concerns: the concept of "global civil society"; the development of international relations as a field of study; the investigation of transnational factors in modern and contemporary history; and the tracing of forerunners to the "information society".