The Idea of Greater Britain : Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900.
Title:
The Idea of Greater Britain : Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900.
Author:
Bell, Duncan.
ISBN:
9781400827978
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (264 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1 Introduction: Builing Greater Britain -- The Boundaries of Imperial Discourse: Imagining Greater Britain -- Greater Britain and Imperial Federation: Variations on a Theme -- Empire and Ideology -- Outline of the Book -- Chapter 2 Global Competition and Democracy -- Balances of Power: Global Threats and Imperial Responses -- Democracy and the Moral Economy of Empire -- Emigration and the Social Question -- Radical Visions of Greater Britain -- Chapter 3 Time, Space, Empire -- "The Eternal Law": Empire and the Vicissitudes of Distance -- Nature in Flux, c. 1830-1870 -- Imperial Political Thought in the Age of Scientific Utopianism, c. 1870-1900 -- Remaking the Global Political Imagination -- Chapter 4 Empire, Nation, State -- The Turn to Federalism -- Statehood and Empire -- J. R. Seeley and the "World-State" -- Race and Nation -- Chapter 5 The Politics of the Constitution -- The Virtues of Vagueness -- Imperial Patriotism and the Constitution -- Civic Imperialism -- J. A. Froude and the "Commonwealth of Oceana" -- Chapter 6 The Apostle of Unity -- The Love of Humanity: Toward a New "Political Religion" -- The Political Theology of Nationalist Cosmopolitanism -- The Darkening of an English Mind -- On the Necessity of Imperial Federation -- The Ambiguities of Unity: India and Ireland -- Chapter 7 The Prophet of Righteousness -- Colonial Emancipation and the "Glorious Future" of the Anglo-Saxon Race -- Empire and Character -- Religion and Liberty -- India, Ireland, and the Necessity of Despotism -- Chapter 8 From Ancient to Modern -- The Functions of the Ancients -- The End of Empire: Two Models -- On Novelty -- Back to the Future -- Chapter 9 Envisioning America -- The Model of the Future: America as Template -- Size Matters: America as Competitor -- Peace and Justice: The Bene.ts of Hegemony.
Through a Glass, Darkly: America as Lesson -- America, Empire, and Racial Unity -- Chapter 10 Conclusion: Lineages of Greater Britain -- Global Consciousness and the Imperial Imagination -- Reverberations: Some Afterlives of Greater Britain -- Select Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.
Abstract:
During the tumultuous closing decades of the nineteenth century, as the prospect of democracy loomed and as intensified global economic and strategic competition reshaped the political imagination, British thinkers grappled with the question of how best to organize the empire. Many found an answer to the anxieties of the age in the idea of Greater Britain, a union of the United Kingdom and its settler colonies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and southern Africa. In The Idea of Greater Britain, Duncan Bell analyzes this fertile yet neglected debate, examining how a wide range of thinkers conceived of this vast "Anglo-Saxon" political community. Their proposals ranged from the fantastically ambitious--creating a globe-spanning nation-state--to the practical and mundane--reinforcing existing ties between the colonies and Britain. But all of these ideas were motivated by the disquiet generated by democracy, by challenges to British global supremacy, and by new possibilities for global cooperation and communication that anticipated today's globalization debates. Exploring attitudes toward the state, race, space, nationality, and empire, as well as highlighting the vital theoretical functions played by visions of Greece, Rome, and the United States, Bell illuminates important aspects of late-Victorian political thought and intellectual life.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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