Abstract
The response to British Imperialism since it was first published in two volumes in 1993 has greatly exceeded our expectations. The books were widely reviewed at the time, and the interpretation they put forward, based on the concept of gentlemanly capitalism, has been extensively discussed subsequently, not only in Britain but also elsewhere in Europe, in the United States and in Asia. We have responded to many of these comments and criticisms in the Foreword of the new, onevolume edition of British Imperialism.2 The publication of the present book, which is the second collection of essays devoted to our work on gentlemanly capitalism and British imperialism, shows that this interest remains strong.3 We are immensely grateful to the ten authors represented here for giving their time and energy to the project. One of them, Shigeru Akita, deserves a special mention. He was the chief organizer of the conference in Osaka from which this book springs, and he has edited the essays with great skill and boundless energy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Our title is adapted from a famous essay by E.P. Thompson, ‘The Peculiarities of the English’ in idem, The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (1978), which discusses the unique features of the British form of capitalist civilization.
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000 (2001), pp. 1–19.
The first was R.E. Dumett (ed.), Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: the New Debate on Empire (1999).
We make this point in response to the criticism that the concept of a gentleman, and by extension of gentlemanly capitalism, is too vague to be useful. See the valuable discussion in Penny Corfield, ‘The Democratic History of the English Gentleman’, History Today, 42 (1992), pp. 40–7; also our comments in British Imperialism, pp. 8–10.
On India see P.J. Marshall, ‘British Society in India under the East India Company’, Modern Asian Studies, 31 (1997), pp. 89–108.
David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge, 2000).
H.V. Bowen, ‘British Conceptions of Global Empire, 1763–83’, Jour. Imp. and Comm. Hist., 26 (1998), pp. 1–27.
For a view ‘from below’, see Linda Colley, ‘Going Native, Telling Tales: Captivity, Collaborations and Empire’, Past & Present, 168 (2000), pp. 170–93.
Patrick K. O’Brien, ‘Inseparable Connections: Trade, Economy, Fiscal State, and the Expansion of Empire, 1688–1815’, in P.J. Marshall (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. II (Oxford, 1998), pp. 53–77, and the further references given there.
Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Political Economy, the Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 1970), ch. 2.
For a concise restatement, see John Darwin, ‘Imperialism and the Victorians: the Dynamics of Territorial Expansion’, English Historical Review, CXII (1997), pp. 614–15.
Tony Ballantyne, ‘Empire, Knowledge and Culture: from Proto-Globalization to Modern Globalization’, in A.G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History (2002), pp. 115–40.
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, ‘The Political Economy of British Expansion Overseas, 1750–1914’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XXXIII (1980), pp. 474–81;
idem, British Imperialism, pp. 82–7, and chs. 2–3; D.C.M. Platt, ‘The National Economy and British Imperial Expansion before 1914’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2 (1973–4), pp. 3–14.
Though we are aligned with him on the broader, diplomatic considerations: see John Darwin, ‘The Fall of the Empire State’, Diplomatic History, 25 (2001), pp. 501–5.
Ibid., ch. 20. Also P.J. Cain, ‘Gentlemanly Imperialism at Work: the Bank of England, Canada, and the Sterling Area, 1932–1936’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd. ser. XLIX (1996), pp. 336–57.
D.K. Fieldhouse, ‘Gentleman, Capitalists and the British Empire’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 22 (1994), pp. 531–41.
See, for example, Juan R.I. Cole, Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypts Urabi movement (Princeton, 1992),
and Afal Lufti Al-Sayyid-Marsot, ‘The British Occupation of Egypt from 1882’, in Andrew Porter (ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire (Oxford, 1999), pp. 651–64.
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, ‘The Political Economy of British Expansion Overseas, 1750–1914’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser. XXXIII (1980), pp. 463–90.
A.G. Hopkins, ‘The “New International Order” in the Nineteenth Century: Britain’s First Development Plan for Africa’ in Robin Law (ed.), From Slave Trade to Legitimate Commerce: the Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 240–64, outlines a framework for treating this theme on a continent-wide basis.
Jonathan Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856–1888 (1994), provides an illuminating case study.
It need hardly be said that this is a far more complex matter than this summary suggests. Specialists vary in their emphases on how strong the Sultanate was at the moment of partition. Compare, for example, Norman R. Bennett, Arab versus European: Diplomacy and War in Nineteenth-Century East Africa (1986)
with Abdul Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Empire into the World Economy, 1770–1873 (1987). This really is a case where ‘more research is needed’.
The best statement of Kirk’s policy, including his links with the ‘unofficial mind’ of imperialism, is now Roy Bridges, ‘Towards the Prelude to the Partition of East Africa’, in Roy Bridges, ed. Imperialism, Decolonization and Africa (2000), ch. 2.
See Trevor Lloyd, ‘Africa and Hobson’s Imperialism’, Past and Present, 55 (1972), pp. 130–53. Lloyd makes this point in the broader context of arguing that, in general, flows of capital had little to do with imperialist expansion in Africa.
For example, David E. Torrance, The Strange Death of Liberal Empire: Lord Selborne in South Africa (Liverpool, 1996), p. 29. We are grateful to Professor Torrance for his advice on Selborne’s views of the City and of imperial union, though he is not responsible for the stance we have taken here.
Kenneth E. Wilburn, ‘Engines of Empire and Independence: Railways in South Africa, 1863–1916’, in Clarence B. Davis and Kenneth E. Wilburn (eds), Railway Imperialism (1991), pp. 32–5.
For Rothschild’s views on informal empire in South Africa, see Niall Ferguson, The World’s Banker: the House of Rothschild (1998), pp. 876–90.
Bill Nasson, The South African War, 1899–1902 (1999), p. 29. This point, in turn, has to be placed in context: it was still the case that 75 per cent of the Uitlanders were British. Ibid., p. 27.
See Peter Henshaw, ‘The “Key to South Africa” in the 1890s: Delagoa Bay and the Origins of the South African War’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24 (1998), pp. 527–43.
Iain R. Smith, The Origins of the South African War (1996), pp. 268–9.
On Chamberlain’s and Milner’s philosophy, see P.J. Cain, ‘The Economic Philosophy of Constructive Imperialism’, in Cornelia Navari (ed.), British Politics and the Spirit of the Age (Keele, 1996), pp. 41–66.
Quoted in Iain R. Smith, ‘Joseph Chamberlain and the Jameson Raid’, in Greg Cuthbertson (ed.), The Jameson Raid: a Centennial Retrospective (Houghton, South Africa, 1996), p. 101.
Phimister’s earlier argument that the Transvaal’s tariff independence was a barrier to union and to Britain’s trade interests in South Africa takes on particular significance in this context. See I.R. Phimister, ‘Unscrambling the Scramble for Southern Africa: the Jameson Raid and the South African War Revisited’, South African Historical Journal, 28 (1993), pp. 218–19.
The detailed study is R.M. Kesner, Economic Control and Colonial Development: Crown Colony Financial Management in the Age of Joseph Chamberlain (Oxford, 1981).
See also S.B. Saul, ‘The Economic Policy of “Constructive Imperialism”’, Journal of Economic History, 17 (1959), pp. 173–92.
On the Crown Agents, see David Sunderland, ‘Principals and Agents: the Activities of the Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1880–1914’, Econ. Hist. Rev. 2nd ser. LII (1999), pp. 284–306.
Gerold Krozewski, Money and the End of Empire: British International Economic Policy and the Colonies, 1947–58 (2001).
W.D. Rubinstein, ‘Britain’s Elites in the Inter-War Period, 1918–39’, Contemporary British History, 12 (1998), pp. 1–18.
Ronald Robinson, ‘The Moral Disarmament of African Empire’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Histoty, 8 (1979), pp. 86–104.
Ronald Robinson, ‘Andrew Cohen and the Transfer of Power in Africa’, in W.M. Morris-Jones and G. Fischer (eds), Decolonisation and After; the British and French Experience (1979), pp. 50–72.
E.H.H. Green, ‘The Influence of the City over British Economic Policy, c.1880–1960’, in Youssef Cassis (ed.), Finance and Financiers in European History, 1880–1960 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 193–218.
Scott Newton and Dilwyn Porter, Modernization Frustrated: the Politics of Industrial Decline in Britain since 1900 (1988).
See, for example, Philip Murphy, Alan Lennox-Boyd: a Biography (1999);
and the patterns of recruitment revealed by A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, Britain’s Imperial Administrators, 1858–1996 (Basingstoke, 2000).
Hugh Thomas (ed.), The Establishment: a Symposium (1959).
We note that Krozewski does not attempt to engage with our, admittedly limited, defence of the idea that gentlemanly capitalist elites continued to flourish after 1945, as presented in British Imperialism, pp. 620–2, or with the references contained therein. In this context, we would draw attention especially to W.D. Rubinstein, ‘Education and the Social Origins of British Elites, 1800–1970’, Past and Present 112 (1986), pp. 163–207.
Important recent contributions to this subject include: R.L. Tignor, Capitalism and Nationalism at the End of Empire: State and Business in Decolonizing Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, 1945–1963 (Princeton, 1998);
Philip Murphy, Party Politics and Decolonization: the Conservative Party and British Colonial Policy in Tropical Africa, 1951–1964 (Oxford, 1995);
Nicholas J. White, Business, Government and the End of Empire: Malaya, 1942–1957 (Oxford, 1996).
There were two prominent considerations: making friends rather than enemies out of nationalists by turning them into statesmen, and devising strategies for keeping colonies that might become independent ‘sterling minded’. See, for example, A.G. Hopkins, ‘Macmillan’s Audit of Empire, 1957’, in Peter Clarke and Clive Trebilcock (eds). Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities. Essays in Honour of Bany Supple (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 234–60.
The phrase is from J.A. Hobson, Imperialism: a Study (1988 ed.), p. 332.
See Roberta Allbert Dayer, Finance and Empire: Sir Charles Addis, 1861–1945 (1989).
Paul Kennedy, The Realities behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980 (1981), esp. Pt.I.
David McLean, ‘The Foreign Office and the First Chinese Indemnity Loan’, Historical Journal 16 (1973), pp. 303–21;
F.H.H. King, History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, II (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 264–75.
The most thorough account is E.W. Edwards, British Diplomacy and Finance in China, 1895–1914 (Oxford, 1987).
David Kynaston, The City of London: the Golden Years, 1890–1914 (1995), pp. 564–71.
See the summary in Hans van de Ven, ‘The Onrush of Modem Globalization in China’, in A.G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History (2002), pp. 167–93.
See P.J. Marshall, ‘Britain and China in the Late Eighteenth Century’, in Robert A. Bickers (ed.), Ritual and Diplomacy: the Macartney Mission to China, 1792–1794 (1993), pp. 11–29.
James L. Hevia’s study, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 (1996), also cited by Shunhong, is an interesting postmodernist account but is of tangential relevance to the issue in hand.
Macartney’s humanitarian, pacific and also prejudiced outlook is assessed by P.J. Marshall, ‘Lord Macartney, India and China: the Two Faces of the Enlightenment’, South Asia, 19 (1996), pp. 121–31.
The established means being shipments of silver. Macartney’s involvement with India and the Company is dealt with by L.S. Sutherland, ‘Lord Macartney’s Appointment as Governor of Madras, 1780: the Treasury in East India Company Elections’, English Historical Review, 90 (1975), pp. 523–35.
Rudrangshu Mukherjee, ‘Trade and Empire in Awahd, 1765–1804’, Past and Present, 94 (1982), pp. 85–106.
Amar Farooqui, ‘Opium Enterprise and Colonial Intervention in Malwa and Western India, 1800–1824’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 32 (1995), pp. 447–73.
This was also a key consideration in the subsequent annexation of Sind: J.Y. Wong, ‘British Annexation of Sind in 1843: an Economic Perspective’, Modern Asian Studies, 31 (1997), pp. 225–44.
British shipping, and British merchants based in India and the Far East, gained significantly from the opium trade. See the important article by Freda Harcourt, ‘Black Gold: P & O and the Opium Trade, 1847–1914’, International Journal of Maritime History, 6 (1994), pp. 1–83.
Anthony Webster, ‘The Political Economy of Trade Liberalization: the East India Company Charter Act of 1813’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. XLIII (1990), pp. 404–19.
Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation: the Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment (1975), especially chs. 1 and 2. Gilpin’s study influenced our early thinking on this subject but has been rather neglected by historians, possibly because its title disguises its substantial historical content.
This is explored in P.T. Marsh, Bargaining on Europe: Britain and the First Common Market, 1860–93 (New Haven, 1999).
A. Marrison, ‘Insular Free Trade, Retaliation and the Most-Favoured-Nation Treaty, 1880–1914’, in idem, Free Trade and its Reception, 1815–1960 (Manchester, 1998).
British Imperialism, ch. 3. See also C.H. Lee, ‘The Service Sector, Regional Specialisation and Economic Growth in the Victorian Economy’, Journal of Historical Geography, 10 (1984), pp. 139–55.
William Cunningham, The Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement (1904), pp. 115–17, and quoted in Cain, ‘The Economic Philosophy of Constmctive Imperialism’, p. 51.
An extended version of this argument can be found in P.J. Cain, ‘Was it Worth Having? The British Empire, 1850–1950’, Revista de Economica Historia, 16 (1998), pp. 351–76, especially 362–72.
A.C. Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846–1946 (Oxford, 1997);
A. Marrison, British Business and Protection, 1903–1932 (Oxford, 1996).
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, 2000).
Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400–1800 (1973);
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (1944).
Patrick O’Brien, ‘Metahistories in Global Histories of Material Progress’, International History Review, 23 (2001), pp. 365–7.
On the cotton-trade rivalries, see Ishii Osamu, ‘Markets and Diplomacy: the Anglo-Japanese Rivalries over Cotton Goods Markets, 1930–36’, in Ian Nish and Yoichi Kibata (eds), The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600–2000, Vol. II: The Political-Diplomatic Dimension, 1931–2000 (Basingstoke, 2000), pp. 51–77. The three-cornered trade conflict between Britain, Australia and Japan in 1936–37 was clearly aggravated by British and Japanese cotton interests. Ibid., pp. 71–3.
With a strong leaning towards finance and an accompanying cosmopolitan worldview. See Maarten Kuitenbrouwer, The Netherlands and the Rise of Modern Capitalism: Colonies and Foreign Policy, 1870–1902 (Oxford, 1991); idem, ‘Capitalism and Imperialism: Britain and the Netherlands’, Itinerario,
Copyright information
© 2002 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cain, P., Hopkins, A.G. (2002). The Peculiarities of British Capitalism: Imperialism and World Development. In: Gentlemanly Capitalism, Imperialism and Global History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919403_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919403_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-43183-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-1940-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)