Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Dynamics of Empire and Expansion

  • Chapter
Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

  • 264 Accesses

Abstract

There used to be a theory that territories came under the British flag as a result of the export of surplus capital. It would be much truer to say that the driving force behind empire-building was rather the export of surplus energy: that the expansion of Britain was the overspill of a restless people. The explorer Sir Samuel Baker wrote in 1855:1

Englishmen& are naturally endowed with a spirit of adventure. There is in the hearts of all a germ of freedom which longs to break through the barriers that confine us to our own shores; and as the newborn wildfowl takes to water from its deserted egg-shell, so we wander over the world when launched on our own resources

.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. S.W. Baker, Eight Years in Ceylon (1855), xii.

    Google Scholar 

  2. H. Merivale, Lectures on Colonies and Colonisation (1841, 1861).

    Google Scholar 

  3. O. Rutter (ed.), Rajah Brooke and Baroness Burdett-Coutts: Consisting of the Letters of (1935), 23.

    Google Scholar 

  4. T. Walrond (ed.), Letters and fournals of the Eighth Earl of Elgin (1872), 199, 250, 275.

    Google Scholar 

  5. A. Ramm, Sir Robert Morier1876–93 (1973), 64, 127–9.

    Google Scholar 

  6. G. Dutton, Hero as Murderer: Life of Edward,John Eyre, Australian Explorer and Governor offamaica1815–1901 (1967), 18; E. Thompson, The Life of Charles Lord Metcalfe (1937), 123–34.

    Google Scholar 

  7. C. Headlam, The Milner Papers, Vol. II, 446–8; F. Gross, Rhodes of Africa (1956), 216. 8. W. Denison, Varieties of Vice-Regal Life, (1870), Vol. I, 18.

    Google Scholar 

  8. M. Cowling, ‘Lytton, the cabinet and the Russians 1878’, EHR, 76 (1961), 59–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. W.D. Mclntyre, The Imperial Frontier in the Tropics1865–75 (1967), 3.

    Google Scholar 

  10. J.S. Galbraith, “‘Turbulent frontier” as a factor in British expansion’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2(1959/60).

    Google Scholar 

  11. W.G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of,Japan1834–58 (1951).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Cromer Papers FO 633/7, 129, Lansdowne to Cromer, 3 April 1905.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Ramm, Sir Robert Morier, 123.

    Google Scholar 

  14. R.E. Robinson, ‘Non-European foundations of European expansion’, in R. Owen and R. Sutcliffe (eds), Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (1972), ch. 5; D.K. Fieldhouse, Economks and Empire 1830–1914 (1973).

    Google Scholar 

  15. J. Benyon, Proconsul andParamountry in SouthAfrica: TheHighCommission, BritishSupremacy and theSub-continent1806–1910 (Natal, 1980), 3–4, 333, 341–2.

    Google Scholar 

  16. W.S. Churchill, The River War (1902 edn), 173.

    Google Scholar 

  17. For Satow see D.C.M. Platt, ‘British diplomacy in Latin America’, Inter American Economic Affairs, 21 (1967), 41.

    Google Scholar 

  18. R.I. Rotberg (with M.F. Shore), The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (1988), 362.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Ibid., 655.

    Google Scholar 

  20. R. Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (1990, 1991). See also A.L. Stoler, ‘Making empire respectable: the politics of race and sexual morality in 20th century colonial cultures’, American Ethnologist, 16 (1989), 634–60.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Earl of Cromer, Political and Literary Essays, 3rd series (1916), 13–14.

    Google Scholar 

  22. H. Robinson, Speeches (1879), quoted in K.O. Hall, ‘Sir Hercules Robinson and South Africa 1881–89’ (PhD, Kingston. 1971). Ontario. 1971) 34. 92.

    Google Scholar 

  23. A. Grimble, A Pattern of Islands (1952), 52.

    Google Scholar 

  24. J.A. Mangan, TheGamesEthic andImperialism:Aspects of theDiffusion of anIdeal (1986), 34–5.

    Google Scholar 

  25. S. Leslie, Studies in Sublime Failure (1932), 256.

    Google Scholar 

  26. D. Wright (ed.), Gould’s History of Fnemasonry [1932], Vols III and V; T.D. Williams (ed.), Secret Societies in Ireland (1973), esp. T. de Vere White, ‘The freemasons’, 46–57; J. Dewar, The Unlocked Secret: Freemasonry Examined ( I966); Grand Lodge 1717–1967 (1967, foreword by A.S. Frere); Encyclopaedia Britartrtica, 11 ( I I th edn, 1910/1 I), 84–5, ‘Freemasonry’; see also T.R. Reese, History of the Royal Comntonwealth Society 1868–1968 (1968), 105–6, 138, and E.A. Walker, Lord de Villiers and His Times: South Africa 1842–1914 (1923), 39–43.

    Google Scholar 

  27. J.M. Roberts, The Mythology ofSecretSocieties (1972), 1–57.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Private letters to the author trom the Earl of Elgin, 4 January 1973, 19 September and 29 October 1974, quoted with permission.

    Google Scholar 

  29. A.T. Wirgman, Storrn and Sunshine in South Afriro, with Sonte Personal and Hislorical Reminisnnces (1922), 187.

    Google Scholar 

  30. A. Hardinge, Life of H.H. Molynnux, 4th Earl of Carnarvon 1831–90 (1925), Vol. I, 222–9.

    Google Scholar 

  31. The Spectator, 5 March 1898, 33.

    Google Scholar 

  32. ‘George Orwell’, Burmese Days (1934).

    Google Scholar 

  33. Goldwin Smith, Reminiscences (ed. A. Haultain, 1910), 69.

    Google Scholar 

  34. L. Woolf, Growing: An Autobiography of the Years1904–11 (1961), 135.

    Google Scholar 

  35. S. Orwell and 1. Angus (eds), The Collected Essays, fournalism and Letters of George Orwell (1968), Vol. I, 239, 403.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Ibid., Vol. I, 388, 393; Vol. III, 262.

    Google Scholar 

  37. M. Perham (ed.), The Diaries of Lord Lugard [East Africa 1889–92J (1954), Vol. I, 193; Vol. II, 116–18; Vol. III, 103, 178, 248, 361.

    Google Scholar 

  38. A. Grimble, Return to the Islands (1957), 153, 212.

    Google Scholar 

  39. J. Nehru, AnAutobiography (1936), 417.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Morley-Minto Papers, D 573/9/50 and I1/34 (18 February 1907) and 16/77, and 20/31.

    Google Scholar 

  41. D.A. Low, Lion Rampant: Essays on the Study of British Imperialism (1973), 22.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Denison, Varieties of Vice-Regal Life, Vol. II, 51, 155, 287, 403.

    Google Scholar 

  43. H.A.C. Cairns, Prelude to Imperialism: British Reactions to Central African Society 1840–90 (1965), 38, 78.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Grimble, Return to the Islands, 211–15.

    Google Scholar 

  45. G.C. Moore Smith (ed.), The Autobiography of Lt.-Cen. Sir Harry Smith (1901), Vol. 11, 231.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Perham (ed.), Diaries of Lord Lugard, Vol. II, I 16–18.

    Google Scholar 

  47. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), Part 2, ch. viii.

    Google Scholar 

  48. F. Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs (1952).

    Google Scholar 

  49. EH. Hinsley, ‘The development of the European states system since the eighteenth century’, 5 TRHS, 11 (1961), 78–9.

    Google Scholar 

  50. B.S. Cohn, An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi, 1990), esp. ‘The census, social structure and objectification in South Asia’, 224–54; C.A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (1997).

    Google Scholar 

  51. N. Tarling (ed.), Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, vol. II, The Ninetetnth and Twentieth eenturies (Kuala Lumpur, 1992), chs 2 and 3; P.J. Drake, ‘Economic development of British Malaya to 1914: an essay in historiography’, journal of South-East Asian Studies, 10 (1979), 272–6; AJ. Stockwell, ‘Conception of community in colonial South-East Asia’, 6 TRHS, 8 (1998), 337–55.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (Yale UP, New Haven and London, 1994), esp. ch. 4, ‘Constructing Bula Matari’, 77–140.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Hesketh Bell, Glimpses of a Governor’s Life (nd ? 1940), 122. 55. F.A. Swettenham, British Malaya: an Account of the Origin and Progress of British Influence (revd. edn 1948), 294.

    Google Scholar 

  54. J.C. Scott, TheMoralEconomy of thePeasant:Rebellion andSubsistence inSouth-EastAsia (New Haven, 1976), 94.

    Google Scholar 

  55. T.N. Harper, The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (1999), ch. 1, ‘On the ruins of Melaka Fort’, 18–27.

    Google Scholar 

  56. J. Iliffe,A ModernHistory ofTanganyika (1979), chs 5 and 6; Africans: theHistory of a Continent (1995), ch. 9, ‘Colonial Invasion’, 187–211. 59. J. Mockford, Khama, King of theBamangwato (1931), 180.

    Google Scholar 

  57. P. Phoofolo, ‘Rinderpest epidemic in late nineteenth-century Africa’, P&P, 138 (1993), 112–43; C. van Onselen, ‘Reactions to Rinderpest’, JAH, 13 (1972), 473–88.

    Google Scholar 

  58. A.E. Atmore, Africa on the eve of the partition’, in R. Oliver and G.N. Sanderson (eds), Cambridge History of Africa, vol. VI From 1870 to 1905 (1985), 1–95; E. Colson, African society at the time of the Scramble’, in L.H. Gann and P. Duignan (eds), Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960, vol. I History and Politics of Colonialism, 1870–1914 (1969), 27–65.

    Google Scholar 

  59. L.P.62. Mair, ‘Social change in Africa’, International Affairs, 36 (1960), 449.

    Google Scholar 

  60. M. Gluckman, Custom and Conflict in Africa (1956, 1963), 78.

    Google Scholar 

  61. As reported by Colin Harding, a police officer with the British South Africa Company, quoted by P. Mason, The Birth of a Dilemma: the Conquest and Settlement of Rhodesia (1958), 204.

    Google Scholar 

  62. J.D. Fage, On theNature ofAfricanHistory: anInauguralLecture (Birmingham, 1965), 18.

    Google Scholar 

  63. T. Falola, ‘Africa’, in P.J. Marshall (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996), 347.

    Google Scholar 

  64. M. Havinden and D. Meredith, Colonialism and Development: British Tropical Colonies, 1850–1960 (1993), 99–105; D.K. Fieldhouse, The West and the Third World: Trade, Colonialism, Dependence and Development (1999), 71–90 ‘Imperial government and the development initiative’.

    Google Scholar 

  65. J. Vineent, Teso inTransformation: thePoliticalEconomy ofPeasant andClass inEastAfrica (Berkeley, 1982).

    Google Scholar 

  66. P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000 (2001), Afterword’; A.G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History (2002).

    Google Scholar 

  67. C.K. Ogden, Debabelization (1931); T.N. Harper, ‘Diaspora and the languages of globalism’, in A.G. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization, 141–66.

    Google Scholar 

  68. C. Chenevix Trench, Men Who Ruled Kenya: the Kenya Administration, 1892–1963 (1993), 108. I owe this quotation to Joanna Lewis.

    Google Scholar 

  69. The best starting-points for comparisons between European empires are A.N. Porter, European Imperialism, 1860–1914 (1994) and D.K. Fieldhouse, Economics and Empire, 1830–1914 (1973, 1984).

    Google Scholar 

  70. D. Lieven, Empire: the Russian Empire and its Rivals (2000), esp. ‘Comparisons between the British and Russian Empires’, 120–7.

    Google Scholar 

  71. G. Hosking, Russia and Russians: a History (2001), 15 and 611.

    Google Scholar 

  72. D. Mackenzie, ‘Russian expansion in Central Asia: St Petersburg versus the Turkestan generals’, Canadian Slavic Studies, 3 (1969), 286–311; P. Morris, The Russians in Central Asia, 1870–1887’, Slavonic and East European Review, 53 (1975), 521–38; D. Gillard, The Struggle for Asia, 1828–1914: a Study in British and Russian Imperialism (1977); D. Geyer, Russian Imperialism, 1860–1914 (Gottingen, 1977, English translation, 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  73. E. Allworth (ed.), Central Asia: a Century of Russian Rule (New York, 1967), ch. 1,58.

    Google Scholar 

  74. T.H. von Laue, Sergei Witte and the Industrialisation of Russia (Columbia, 1963). 78. G.N. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian Question (1889), 382–414.

    Google Scholar 

  75. R.A. Pierce, Russian Central Asia 1867–1917 (Berkeley, 1960); J.R. Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America: the Changing Geography of the Supply of Russian America, 1784–1867 (New York, 1976).

    Google Scholar 

  76. H. Brunschwig, Mythes et Rialitls de l’ImpErialistne Colonial Franyaise, 1871–1914 (Paris, 1960, English translation, 1966, with an introduction by R.E. Robinson, repr. from JAH, 2 (1961), 158–9).

    Google Scholar 

  77. A.S. Kanya-Forstner, The Conquest of the Western Sudan: a Study in French Military Imperialism (1969), reviewed by B.O. Oloruntimehin, ‘Theories of “official mind” and “military imperialism” as related to the French conquest of the Western Sudan’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 5 (1970), 419–34; C.M. Andrew and A.S. Kanya-Forstner, France Overseas: the Great War and the Climax of French Imperial Expansion (1981), esp. 9–42, and ‘Centre and periphery in the making of the second French empire, 1815–1920’, JICH, 16 (1988), 9–34, repr. in A. Porter and R. Holland (eds), Theory and Practice in the History of European Expansion Overseas: Essays in Honour of Ronald Robinson (1988); C.W. Newbury and A.S. Kanya-Forstner, ‘French policy and the Scramble’, JAH, 10 (1969), 253–76; R. Aldrich, French Presence in the South Pacific, 1842–1940 (1990).

    Google Scholar 

  78. Quoted by J. Stengers in P.J.M. McEwan (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Africa (1968), 283 (repr. from JAH, 3 (1962), 469–91). TF. Power, Jules Ferry (New York. 1944) remains a safe tauide.

    Google Scholar 

  79. J.F. Cady, TheRoots ofFrenchImperialism inEasternAsia (Cornell, 1954), 100 and 282. For another view, see J. Marseille, EmpireColonial etCapitalismeFranFaise (Paris, 1984).

    Google Scholar 

  80. E. Said, Orientalism (1978), 42 and 84–7.

    Google Scholar 

  81. J.D. Hargreaves, WestAfricaPartitioned, vol. I LoadedPause, 1885–1889 (1974), 16; D.R. Headrick, TheTools ofEmpire: Technology andEuropeanImperialism in the NineteenthCentury (1981), 200–1.

    Google Scholar 

  82. S.H. Roberts, History oj French Colonial Policy, 1870–1925 (1929), 341–3.

    Google Scholar 

  83. J.D. Hargreaves, West AfiicaPartitioned, vol. II TheElephants and the Grass (1985), 235–7.

    Google Scholar 

  84. P.M. Kennedy, TheRise ofAnglo-GermanAntagonism, 1860–1914 (1980); H.-U. Wehler, ‘Bismarck’s Imperialism, 1862–1890’, P&P, 48 (1970), 119–55; E. Feuchtwanger, ImperialGermany, 1850–1918 (2001), 90–1; F. Stern, Gold andIron:Bismark,Bleichroder and theBuilding of theGermanEmpire (New York, 1977).

    Google Scholar 

  85. W.O. Aydelotte, Bismarck and British Colonial Policy; the Problem of SouthWest Africa, 1883–1885 (Philadelphia, 1937), 21.

    Google Scholar 

  86. H.A. Turner, ‘Bismarck’s imperialist venture: anti-British in origin?’, in P. Gifford and W.R. Louis (eds), Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule (Yale, 1967), 47–82.

    Google Scholar 

  87. W.H. Dawson, The German Empire, 1867–1914, vol. II (1919), 198–9; see also WJ. Mommsen, in S. Forster and others (eds), Bismarck, Europe and Africa: the Berlin Conference, 1884–85 and the Onset of Partition (1988), 166.

    Google Scholar 

  88. H.L. Wesseling, ‘The giant that was a dwarf: or, the strange history of Dutch imperialism’, JICH, 16 (1988), 58–70, repr. in Theory and Practice… Essays in Honour of Ronald Robinson; for an alternative view, applying the ‘Cain and Hopkins’ theory, see M. Kuitenbrouwer, The Netherlands and the Rise of Modern Imperialism: Colonies and Foreign Policy, 1870–1902 (1985, English translation 1991), esp. 349–69 on comparisons with Britain, Portugal and Belgium.

    Google Scholar 

  89. G. Cecil, The Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. IV (1932), 326; W.L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902, (New York, 2nd edn, 1951), 272.

    Google Scholar 

  90. G.N. Sanderson, England, Europe and the Upper Nile, 1882–1899 (1965), 383–4; J.-L. Miêge, L’impérialisme Colonial Italien de 1870 d.NosJours (Paris, 1968); R.A. Webster, Industrial Imperialism in Italy, 1908–1915 (Berkeley, 1975); D. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire (1976), 32–44. Most work on Italian expansion concentrates on the fascist era, including E. Serra and C. Seton-Watson (eds), Italia e Inghilterra nd’ eta dell’ Imperialismo (Milan, 1990; proceedings of a conference at Catania, 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  91. R J. Hammond, ‘Imperialism: sidelights on a stereotype’, Journal of Economic History, 21 (1961), 583, and Portugal and Africa, 1815–1910: a Study in Uneconomic Imperialism (Stanford, 1966); G. Clarence-Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825–1975: a Study in Economic Imperialism (1985).

    Google Scholar 

  92. J. Stengers, ‘King Leopold’s imperialism’, in R. Owen and R. Sutcliffe (eds), Studies in theTheory ofImperialism (1972), 248–75.

    Google Scholar 

  93. R. van Alstyne, The American Empire: its Historical Pattern and Evolution (Historical Association pamphlet, 1960), and The Rising American Empire (1960), esp. ‘The lure of East Asia’, 170–94; J.A. Field, jr, ‘American imperialism: the worst chapter in almost any book’, AHR, 83 (1978), 644–83; H. Wayne Morgan, Road to Empire: the War with Spain and Overseas Expansion (New York, 1965); J.C. Thomson, P.W. Stanley and J.G. Perry, Sentimental Imperialism: The American Experience in East Asia (New York, 1981), 93–120.

    Google Scholar 

  94. S.C. Miller, ‘Benevolent Assimilation’: the American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 (Yale, New Haven, 1982), 188.

    Google Scholar 

  95. M.B. Jansen (ed.), Cambridge History of Japan, vol. V, The Nineteenth Century (1989).

    Google Scholar 

  96. For example, W.G. Beasley,Japanese Imperialism, 1894–1945 (1987).

    Google Scholar 

  97. S. Sugiyama, Japan’s Industrialisation in the World Economy, 1859–1897 (1988), 78.

    Google Scholar 

  98. R.H. Myers and M.R. Peattie (eds), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945 (Princeton, 1984); A. Iriye, ‘Japan’s drive to great power status’, in Cambridge History of Japan, vol. V, ch. 12; M.R. Peattie, ‘The Japanese empire, 1895–1945’ in P. Duus (ed.), Cambridge History of Japan, vol. VI (1988), 217–70.

    Google Scholar 

  99. E. Tagliacozzo, ‘Kettle on a slow boil: Batavia’s threat-perceptions in the Indies’ outer islands, 1870–1910’, Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 31 (2000). 70–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  100. H. Strachan, The First World War, vol. I, To Arms (2001), 695–6, 785, 814.

    Google Scholar 

  101. F. Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War (Düsseldorf, 1961, English translation 1967), 84.

    Google Scholar 

  102. G. Shepperson and T. Price, Independent African: Chilembwe and the Nyasaland Native Rising, 1915 (1st edn, 1958); R.I. Rotberg and A. Mazrui (eds), Protest and Power in Black Africa (1970), 350–73; R.I. Rotberg, The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa, 1873–1964 (1966), 76–92.

    Google Scholar 

  103. Magdalene College Archives, F/WRI, diary of Dean Inge, vol. 25.

    Google Scholar 

  104. Morley-Minto Papers, D 573/2, Morley to Minto, 12 August 1907, and 3/9 8 January 1908.

    Google Scholar 

  105. R. Hyam, A Histor of Isleworth Grammar School (1969), 52; H.0 Willink, ‘As I Remember’, unpublished memoir (1968), Churchill College Archives Centre, 19.

    Google Scholar 

  106. J.M. Winter, TheGreatWar and theBritishPeople (1985), ch. 3, ‘The lost generation’, 65–99.

    Google Scholar 

  107. Percentages derived from R.F. Holland, ‘The British empire and the Great War, 1914–1918’, table 5.1, in J.M. Brown and W.R. Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. IV The Twentieth Century (1999), 117.

    Google Scholar 

  108. T.E.B. Howarth, Cambridge Between Two Wars (1978), 16.

    Google Scholar 

  109. F.A. Simpson, A Sermon Preached in Great St Mary’s Church at the Commemoration of Benefactors, 2 November 1932 (Cambridge Review, 1932, repr. 9 October 1954 as a separate pamphlet, and again in 1972).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK

    Ronald Hyam (Fellow)

Authors
  1. Ronald Hyam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2002 Ronald Hyam

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hyam, R. (2002). The Dynamics of Empire and Expansion. In: Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403918420_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403918420_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-99311-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-1842-0

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation