Empire, State, and Society E-Book

Jamie L. Bronstein

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 735

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

EMPIRE, STATE, AND SOCIETY

“This book captures the broad-sweep of modern British history. Bronstein and Harris’s narrative is distinguished by its comprehensive coverage, readability, and sure judgment. It is an excellent book.”
James Epstein, Vanderbilt University

“This is a well-structured and gracefully written textbook that undergraduates at American universities and colleges should find highly accessible. It integrates recent scholarly trends into a compelling narrative that brings together metropolitan and imperial themes. These themes are illuminated by well-chosen anecdotes that make them come alive. Bronstein and Harris have provided an excellent introduction to modern Britain and its Empire, and one that deserves a wide readership.”
Phil Harling, University of Kentucky

In the nineteenth century, Great Britain was a world-recognized superpower. Tremendous economic growth fostered a daunting formal empire, global networks of trade and investment, and a formidable military. By the late twentieth century this position of dominance had eroded significantly under the stress of two world wars, rising nationalist movements, shifting geopolitics, and the transformation to a post-industrial economy. As Britain adjusts to her new place in the post-colonial world, Empire, State, and Society assesses the external and internal forces behind these transformations.

The authors draw on the most recent scholarship to give due importance to social, economic, and cultural changes as well as politics and international diplomacy. Divided into chapters both chronologically and thematically, Empire, State, and Society enables detailed exploration of issues such as race, gender, religion, and the environment. In doing so, the book provides an accessible, comprehensive, and balanced introduction to British history.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Series

Title Page

Copyright

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Britain to 1830

Geography

Governance and Political Culture

Britain's Empire

Social Orders

Industrial and Other Revolutions

Social Stability and Instability

Identities and Beliefs

Chapter 2: Universal Suffrage and No Surrender

Gaining the Reform Act

Government Energized

Victoria and Her Ministers

The Chartist Movement

Pressure from Without: the Church and the Corn Laws

Famine in Ireland and the Limits of Free Trade

Palmerston and Foreign Policy

Realignment and the Second Reform Act

Chapter 3: Dark Satanic Mills?

Social Structure: The Aristocracy

The Middle Classes

The Working Classes

Chapter 4: Utilitarians, Evangelicals, and Empire

Religious Belief and Religious Practice

Science and the Experimental Worldview

Social Thought and Criticism

Chapter 5: Democracy and Empire

Reform and Inclusion

Gladstone and Disraeli

Gladstone's First Ministry (1867–1874)

Disraeli's Second Ministry (1874–1880)

Gladstone's Second Ministry (1880–1885)

Home Rule, Joseph Chamberlain, and the Liberal Unionists

The Boer War

A New Century

Chapter 6: The Decline of the Aristocracy

A Great Depression?

Population and Cities

A Dynamic Working Class

Changing Roles for Women

Chapter 7: Faith and Doubt?

Mass Culture and Popular Literacy

Religion and Spiritualism

The Birth of “Society”

Science and Social Darwinism

Arts and Artists

National and Imperial Cultures

Chapter 8: In Flanders Fields

Rumbles of Thunder

The Outbreak of War

Raising an Army

The Great War for the British Soldier

Major Battles

The Great War on the Home Front

The War in Government

The Impact of the War

Chapter 9: Nationalism and Depression

Negotiating Peace

Empire in the 1920s

The Great Depression and the Postwar Political Order

Changes for Women

Tradition and Modernity

Experiencing the Depression in the 1930s

Coalition Government and the Depression

Popular Politics

Consumption Patterns

Nationalism and Its Discontents

Chapter 10: Culture and Ideas between the Wars, 1919–1939

Leisure and Sport

Intellectual Currents

Mass Culture and Broadcasting

Chapter 11: London Burning

Declaration of War

Britain Alone?

The Economy in Wartime

The Unifying Myth of the Blitz

British Culture in Wartime

War's Aftermath

Chapter 12: Winds of Change

The Construction of a Welfare State

The Cold War

The 1950s and Conservative Government

The End of Empire

Suez and After

Harold Macmillan and the Winds of Change

Finding Allies and Trading Partners: Britain in Search of a Role

The 1970s

The Troubles

Popular Politics

Labour, the Social Contract, and the “Winter of Discontent”

Chapter 13: Building a Welfare State

Economic Change and Economic Policies

Economic Golden Age

The Baby Boom

New Roles for Men and Women

Race and Immigration

What's the Matter with Britain?

Pockets of Poverty

Chapter 14: Meet the Beatles

The Festival of Britain

Literature and Theater

Art and Music

Film

Radio and Television

Youth Culture

Leisure and Sport

Intellectual Developments

Chapter 15: From Rule Britannia to Cool Britannia

Thatcherism

Thatcher's Foreign Policy

John Major

John Major's Foreign Policy

The Birth of New Labour

Government Reforms and Devolution

New Labour's Foreign Policy

Chapter 16: Whither Britain?

The Enterprise Culture

Free Markets in Culture

Literature and Theater

Art and Design

Music

Education

Crime

Immigration and Race

Sexual Mores

Religion

New Labour and “Cool Britannia”

Appendix: Reigns and Ministries since 1830

Bibliography

Index

Titles of Related Interest from Wiley-Blackwell

Early Modern England 1485–1714: A Narrative HistorySecond Edition Robert Bucholz & Newton Key

Sources and Debates in English History: 1485–1714Second Edition Edited by Newton Key & Robert Bucholz

Imperial Island: A History of Britain and Its Empire, 1660–1837 Paul Kléber Monod

A History of Modern Britain: 1714 to the Present Ellis Wasson

Sources and Debates in Modern British History: 1714 to the Present Edited by Ellis Wasson

This edition first published 2012 © 2012 Jamie L. Bronstein and Andrew T. Harris

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bronstein, Jamie L., 1968– Empire, state, and society : Britain since 1830 / Jamie L. Bronstein and Andrew T. Harris. – 1st ed. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4051-8181-5 (cloth) – ISBN 978-1-4051-8180-8 (pbk.) 1. Great Britain–History– 19th century. 2. Great Britain–History–20th century. I. Harris, Andrew T. (Andrew Todd), 1968- II. Title. DA530.B75 2012 941.08–dc23 2011033730

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

First Impression 2012

List of Illustrations

Figures

2.1 The House of Commons, 1833 by Sir George Hayter

2.2 Illustration of children at work in mines from an 1842 Parliamentary Report

3.1 “The Poor Man's Friend,” by Punch cartoonist John Leech, 1845

3.2 A print of 1835 shows workers operating a pair of spinning mules

4.1 A Punch cartoonist lampoons both Darwinism and an older, abolitionist image

4.2 An interior view of the British Nave of the 1851 Great Exhibition

5.1Punch cartoon of Disraeli presenting Queen Victoria with the title “Empress of India”

6.1 A Victorian advertisement for tobacco invokes patriotism, military service, and the East

6.2 Barefoot children at the Charles Thompson Poor Children's Mission in Birkenhead

7.1 Middlesex Music Hall poster of 1886 displays its “Wondrous Electrical Automaton”

7.2 “Socialism & the Imperialistic Will'o the Wisp”: cartoon from Justice, 1901

8.1 Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenny, of the Women's Social and Political Union

8.2 Women working in a Coventry munitions plant in the First World War

9.1 Workers at Crewe demonstrate during the 1926 general strike

9.2 Hunger marchers in London in 1932

11.1 “Don't do it, Mother” pleads a Second World War poster

12.1 British troops move through Port Said during the 1956 Suez crisis

12.2 Dark moments in Northern Ireland's “Troubles”: a funeral for Bloody Sunday victims

12.3 Autoworkers on strike in 1979 in the Winter of Discontent

13.1 Jamaican immigrants from the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in 1948

15.1 “Coal Not Dole”: miners hoping to save the pits in the bitter 1984 strike

16.1 A bus wrecked by one of the terror attacks in London on July 7, 2005

Maps

1.1 Counties of Great Britain and Ireland in 1830.

2.1 The Victorian empire.

5.1 The Boer War and the formation of South Africa.

8.1 European alliances and the start of the First World War.

8.2 Major battles of the Western Front.

11.1 Major battles of the Second World War.

12.1 India, Partition and conflict.

Acknowledgments

Both authors wish to acknowledge and express gratitude to Peter Stansky, who guided us through the pleasures of modern British historiography in graduate school. Tessa Harvey and her colleagues at Wiley-Blackwell proved adept, constructive and flexible editors. The three anonymous reviewers of the final manuscript corrected many mistakes, and we take responsibility for any that remain.

Andrew Harris thanks his students at Bridgewater State University for their curiosity and excitement about that other England new to them, for many wonderful conversations, and for the opportunity to think through some of the ideas incorporated here. His colleagues in the history department and the university offered stimulating and supportive collegiality, especially Ann Brunjes, who has been close friend, colleague, co-teacher and conscience. Howard London and Dana Mohler-Faria supported work on this project while the author undertook administrative positions in their respective offices, and Ron Pitt has been friend and mentor extraordinaire. Bob Woods first showed how historical study could be rigorous, exacting and fulfilling as a temperament as well as a discipline. Deepest gratitude goes to Ted and Gilda Harris, and to Laurie and Eli, without whose love and support such an undertaking would have been impossible.

Jamie Bronstein would like to thank colleagues and friends who made helpful suggestions or read chapters of the manuscript, including Ken Hammond, Chad Martin, Andrew Muldoon, Dawn Rafferty, and Mark Walker. She would also like to thank the students in her classes at New Mexico State University, who provided a sounding-board for many of the ideas that were incorporated into these chapters. Finally, she would like to acknowledge Mike Zigmond, who read chapters, made suggestions, and participated in many one-sided conversations about nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, with great patience and humor; and Evan Zigmond, for being an unending source of comic relief.

Introduction

Why write a history of modern Britain? In the nineteenth century, Great Britain was the world's recognized superpower, with a daunting formal empire, networks of trade and investment outside its empire, and a formidable military. The geographical extent of British power was rivaled only by the opinion that the British had of themselves: as first in industry, first in culture, first in democratic institutions. By the twentieth century many of these points of pride had proven transitory. The story of British expansion and contraction is a rich and complex tale for the Western industrialized world. Whether it is also a cautionary tale will depend on one's politics as much as the historical record.

For American students of history in particular, British history continues to hold great interest. Britain is, after all, one of North America's distinguished ancestors, the source of many of its juridical and political institutions, its historically dominant language, and much of its literature and culture. In the twenty-first century, Britain remains one of America's staunchest allies, the fruits of the “special relationship” which developed during the Second World War. American students remain fascinated by modern British culture: the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the royals and Monty Python, England's green and pleasant land, literary period dramas via BBC America, and the general “historicity” of an older society.

Modern British history reveals as much by its departures as its similarities. How was an abolitionist movement different in a country that contemplated no domestic institution of slavery? How did oversight of a vast and diverse empire interact with the formation of racial identities at home? How did demographic patterns and the environmental impact differ when industrialization took place on a small island rather than a large continent? The United States is often considered a country in which considerations of “class” have been irrelevant and white men were enfranchised from the 1820s onward. How then did workers’ experience differ in a more hierarchical society in which they were specifically deprived of, and struggled for, the vote? Britain two centuries ago continues to fascinate because it was a country grappling with modernity in a language that we share, but with beguiling and dissimilar problems. The people who populated that world are enough like us to be accessible and yet different enough to raise fascinating historical questions.

The field of modern British history has undergone a transformation in the past generation. There is more material available than ever from which to draw – thick description about political culture, about the multifaceted experiences of people within Britain and within its empire, about the nature of national and regional identity. Long cognizant of class, historians have come to appreciate that a modern story of British culture cannot be told without weaving gender and race throughout the narrative rather than relegating them to boutique chapters. The story of empire took place not only in the seat of government at Whitehall and in the colonies themselves, but also impacted the lived experiences of ordinary Britons and influenced how they interacted with their state. Recent historical writing has broadened what we know about religion, gender, science and technology, transatlantic movements of ideas and people, and the interaction between people and their environment. We have tried to integrate these into a meaningful narrative from which students and faculty can derive both a coherent story and useful points of further exploration.

Empire, State, and Society proceeds chronologically and thematically. Within each broad time period we have divided material into separate chapters on politics, on society and economics, and on intellectual beliefs and cultural forms, varying between two and three chapters in each period according to the historical coherence of the resulting narrative. In the twentieth century the two world wars so demarcate their age that each receives a comprehensive chapter.

In contrast with the United States, where a weak federal system diffused power, Britain had a strong locus of power in Parliament – but it was far from being the only important site of power. Thus, our political narrative includes not only ministerial changes and Acts of Parliament, but also foreign affairs, political culture, the changing nature and institutions of local government, the relationship between Britain and various colonies, and notable shifts of emphasis within Britain's own regions. Looking broadly at political culture enables us to address larger interpretive questions: Was Britain relatively calm in the mid-nineteenth century because struggles to define nationhood or to retrench economically could be absorbed by the Empire? To what extent was Britain in the late twentieth century torn between its roles as special friend of the United States and as leader of a new European coalition? Our treatment of each period's social and economic history also engages the changing nature of class, families, work and leisure, of leisure culture and people's interaction with their changing environment and with the law, and of the different experiences of women and children and immigrants, providing readers with a rich appreciation of what it felt like to live through the period in question. We also explore the intellectual and cultural reactions to and sensibilities within each period. How did the British think about and understand the paths they took through Utilitarianism, Evangelicalism, science, religion, and socialism? How did they construct or respond to modern art, Fabianism, decolonization, or economics? How did they generate ideas, how did they create cultural norms, and how did they criticize the assumptions of their own times?

This work begins in 1830, which does not align precisely with the commencement or conclusion of any major historical epoch. The Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815; the industrial revolution started much earlier and continued into the nineteenth century; Victoria's reign began in 1837; the first great Reform Act was not passed until 1832. This frees the book from having to begin with the beginning of an actual event, which is just as conceptually challenging as beginning in the middle. Chapter lays the groundwork for both the structures of British society and politics in 1830, and provides a brief overview of the history leading up to our beginning. Readers interested in further exploration of the period before may wish to consult the excellent volume preceding ours in this informal series, Imperial Island, by Paul Kleber Monod.

1

Britain to 1830

In 1830, King George IV died and was succeeded by his brother the Duke of Clarence, who became William IV. William's rule was short – only seven years, and was flanked by powerful royal personalities both before and after. George IV (r. 1820–1830) had been a wonderfully disliked philanderer and decadent dandy. Queen Victoria's rule (1837–1903) spanned over six decades and represented the highest point of British industrial and imperial strength. Yet in his apparently timeless ceremonial coronation as king of Great Britain, William reminds us just how paradoxically new the kingdom of Great Britain really was. In 1830, it had existed only 30 years.

Great Britain signified an area of land encompassing one large island off the northwest coast of Europe, a smaller island further west (Ireland), and a host of still smaller islands scattered nearby (the Orkneys and Shetlands to the north, the Hebrides to the northwest, the Isle of Man to the west, and the Isle of Wight due south, among others). The total land mass was just over 120,000 square miles: slightly larger than the combined New England states, less than half the size of Texas, smaller even than France or modern Germany. Great Britain was neither geographically coherent nor, as a nation, very old, having been created by unifying Ireland with England, Wales and Scotland by legislative act in 1800. Scotland itself had been similarly united with England and Wales in 1707, and Wales in 1536. The United Kingdom in 1830 was thus already a state that had been absorbing its neighbors for three centuries.

Even in 1830, Great Britain was more than the sum of these small islands in the North Atlantic. In terms of population, the British Empire theoretically encompassed over one-fifth of all the world's inhabitants in 1815 – and this was even after the loss of 13 of the American colonies. What then did it mean to be “British” in 1830? Who governed Britain? Who worked, who spent, and how did people live? This chapter attempts both a static picture of the governance, landscapes, and societies of Britain in 1830, as well as an exploration of the many changes in politics, economic production, and ideas in the decades leading up to William's coronation.

Geography

The defining feature of British geography as a set of islands navigable by internal rivers and canals is its proximity to and reliance upon water. Water protected Britain from European conquest in this period: the most recent successful invasion from Europe had occurred in the Middle Ages.1 Separation by 30 miles of water from continental Europe encouraged the British, perhaps more than most people, to explain their temperament with reference to accidents of geography. They saw themselves as different from Europeans in spirit, in culture, and in politics. One cannot read too much into this assertion of difference, since Britons also traveled abroad, had extensive commercial relations with European states, sometimes sent their children to be educated abroad, and had numerous cultural connections and exchanges across the English Channel, and across many other bodies of water besides. That they saw themselves as different is more telling than the possibility of difference itself.

The British Isles possessed a long coastline and many port cities. With extensive internal waterways, enhanced by eighteenth-century canal building, this meant ease of access to water transport – and transport by water was, in the age before railways, always less expensive and faster than transit over land. No point in Britain is more than 70 miles from the ocean, and most are far less distant from major rivers and canals.

Britain has extensive variations in its landscape. The North of England, north of a rough and imaginary line from Durham to Exeter, is relatively mountainous, rainy (over 40 inches a year), and less agriculturally productive than the South, due to the rockier soil. It is also where much of the mineral wealth resides: the iron, coal, tin, clay, lead, and copper that have been crucial to modern industrial development.

South of this imaginary line, the land is more gently rolling, with less but still considerable rainfall, enough to make portions of it still essentially swampland in the eighteenth century. Better drainage techniques had by then already begun converting these boggy areas into cultivable farmland. Wales and Scotland are more mountainous, and Scotland consists of both rocky highlands and hilly, agriculturally fertile lowlands. In both Wales and Scotland by the early nineteenth century, geography had influenced settlement patterns: population concentrated in coastal areas, in valleys, or on plateaus. Separated from Britain by water in some areas wider than the English Channel, Ireland has fewer large mountain ranges and more rain than most of Britain. Its temperature range is even milder than that of southern England, with warmer winters and cooler summers.