Abstract
‘How is the Empire?’ George V’s last words, spoken in 1936, voiced a preoccupation of monarchs and governments which sounded across three centuries of British history. Even today, there is a sense in which the empire lives on. Its presence is felt in the imperial legacies of the Commonwealth — from the heights of the English language to the depths of the malfunctioning colonial telephone. In 1988, no less than in 1688, the need for security and the quest for wealth continue to draw Britain into the wider world, and policy-makers still strive, as they have for generations, to ensure that they do not preside over ‘an insignificant island in the North Sea’.
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References and Further Reading
A. Brewer, Marxist Theories of Imperialism (London, 1980).
P. J. Cain, Economic Foundations of British Overseas Expansion, 1815–1914 (London, 1980).
P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas, I. The Old Colonial System, 1688–1850’, Economic History Review, XXXIX (1986).
P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas, II. ‘New Imperialism, 1850–1945’, Economic History Review, XL (1987).
E. Davis and R. A. Huttenback, with the assistance of Susan Grey Davis, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912 (Cambridge, 1987).
A. G. Hopkins, ‘The Victorians and Africa: A Reconsideration of the Occupation of Egypt, 1882’, Journal of African History, 27 (1986).
A. G. Hopkins, ‘Accounting for the British Empire’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 16 (1988).
W. R. Louis (ed.), Imperialism: The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy (New York, 1976).
R. Robinson and J. Gallagher with A. Denny, Africa and the Victorians (London, 2nd edn, 1981).
R. Owen and B. Sutcliffe (eds), Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London, 1972).
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Hopkins, A.G. (1989). British Imperialism: a Review and a Revision. In: Digby, A., Feinstein, C. (eds) New Directions in Economic and Social History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20315-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20315-4_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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