The tales here told are written, not to glorify war, but to nourish patriotism.

Dr FitchettвЂ™s preface commences in the characteristically paranoid mode of embattled imperialist scholarship: I have in my hand a school prize awarded to Duncan Stuart of Alloa Academy вЂ“ вЂ3rd in Mathematics, 3rd in DrawingвЂ™ вЂ“ in 1915: Deeds that Won the Empire, by W.H. Even the extremely noble British Raj in India had unmistakably sordid origins, and the Amritsar Massacre of unarmed Pubjabi demonstrators in 1919 hardly supported the case of idealistic imperialists who believed that wise and benevolent British rule was leading the world towards peace and justice. But bright university students of history would mostly be more interested in the medieval origins of parliament and вЂEnglish libertyвЂ™, or in that splendid industrial revolution which the British had somehow, it was insinuated, engineered all by themselves, or in WellingtonвЂ™s peninsular campaigns, than in the awkward tale of empire which included quasi-genocidal activities in Ireland, slave colonies in the Caribbean, defeat in the war of American Independence, and not too savoury deployment of rapid fire guns against Africans. We should be clear that the general tenor of British education, and public life, was imperialistic right through to the 1950s-Empire Day and the monarchвЂ™s broadcasts to the empire, along with huge empire exhibitions, did make an impression on the public, and the Queen of TongaвЂ™s appearance at Elizabeth IIвЂ™s coronation was a popular stroke of pageantry in time honoured style. The devoted geographers and historians who tried to interest university students and school children in the empire had support from jingoistic headmasters and the more bone-headed teachers of вЂEnglish literatureвЂ™, but knew that they faced an uphill struggle. The вЂabsence of mindвЂ™ which the Victorian historian Seeley had seen as typical of BritainвЂ™s acquisition of an empire persisted down to that moment in the 1960s when Harold WilsonвЂ™s government presented the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to the US as a base, wholly irrespective of the wishes of its contented inhabitants, who were kicked out, and beyond that to the war launched in 1982 by Margaret Thatcher to defend the Falklands, which British administrations, Labour and Tory, had been trying to hand over to Argentina for many years. AttleeвЂ™s post-war Labour administration was committed to self rule for imperial peoples, yet it presided over a spate of emigration which vastly increased white settler populations in British Africa and so provided the human basis for Ian SmithвЂ™s Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Shanghai and Argentina, not formally вЂownedвЂ™ or garrisoned by Britain, were hugely more important to the metropolitan economy than the vast tracts of Arctic North America and the far flung archipelagos of the Pacific which were painted or marked with red on the map. The House of Commons had habitually emptied when Indian and other imperial questions had been discussed.Д®mpire had been taken for granted, except in those middle and upper class circles which had provided soldiers and administrators for the Raj and its equivalents elsewhere in the tropics, sent professionals and missionaries to far places, or imported and exported goods to the colonies. The British retreat from the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was presented as a noble and generous renunciation вЂ“ few realise even now that India had been on its way to home rule with dominion status in 1939 and only ChurchillвЂ™s stubbornness had prevented recognition of independence during the war, when India had voluntarily poured men and munitions into the fight against Hitler. When public opinion polls got going towards the middle of the century, they disclosed that most electors found it hard to name colonies, let alone know where they were.

The Origins of Empire: The New Oxford History of the British Empire Volume IДЄt the start of the 20th century people in Britain were very proud of Queen VictoriaвЂ™s mighty empire, which was still expanding in Africa and would reach its furthest extent in the 1920s. Angus Calder: Into slavery - the rise of imperialism (Summer 1999)Д®ncyclopedia of Trotskyism | MarxistsвЂ™ Internet ArchiveДЄngus Calder Into slavery: the rise of imperialismДЇrom International Socialism 2:83, Summer 1999.Д¬opied with thanks from the International Socialism Archive.

Imperialism 2 (1999)