RECENT RESEARCH IN IMPERIAL HISTORY I Imperial History

RECENT RESEARCH IN IMPERIAL HISTORY

I. Imperial History II. Colonial History – the case study of Indian history

A New Nostalgia for Empire? • Niall Ferguson • W. H. Crocker -- The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Empire – British empire not imperialist enough • Jeremy Paxman – ‘Empire’

Earlier Perspectives • Gallagher and Robinson – the ‘official mind’; economic coercion and gunboat diplomacy; indigenous collaborators • Hopkins and Cain – Bankers, Merchants and ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’

Later Developments • Revival of ‘imperial history’ and the emergence of new perspectives • Critique of top-heavy models • John Mackenzie – that imperialism was a huge part of popular culture in Britain, right down to the 1950 s • Ann Stoler – the fragmented nature of imperialism

Connected Histories • Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Critique of artificial boundaries –’South Asia’, ‘South East Asia’ • Parallel/connected developments • C. A. Bayly – Imperial Meridian – Similar developments in South Asia, South East Asia, ‘Middle East’ • De-centering Colonialism

Critique of the new historiography • Is it right to decentre colonialism? • Ignoring asymmetrical power relations • Connected – but in an unequal way

II. COLONIAL HISTORY

NATIONALIST HISTORIES • The post-colonial period and nationalist histories • Preoccupied with the National Movement – Gandhi, Nehru • Fashioning an identity, re-claiming the past

Marxist Influences • 1970 s -- A Growing Dissatisfaction with Post-colonial developments • A Broadening of Historians’ Concerns – from nationalism, to economic histories • Also a move away from ‘elitist histories’ • Not just an Indian phenomenon

The Subaltern School • Dissatisfaction with existing perspectives • A Move towards ‘history from below’ • The Influence of E. P. Thompson on earlier volumes

Edward Said and Orientalism • ‘Otherisation’, sterotypes, binaries • The cultural discourse that backed the empire • Within the Indian context– a shift towards ‘colonial discourse analysis’

Critique of these new trends • Too much cultural studies, colonial discourse? • Ignoring Economic history, or history from below • Interrogates categories, but is it politically useful? Example of feminism

Conclusion -- The Impact of ‘new histories of colonialism and imperialism’ • A move away from top-heavy histories • A greater suspicion of Eurocentric histories • Interrogating categories – for instance, questioning of a the idea of a unified ‘imperialism’ • Greater awareness of an inter-connected world