The break-up of Greater Britain

Editors:
Christian D. Pedersen
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Stuart Ward
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How did the end of empire affect the projection of British identities overseas? British decolonisation is conventionally understood in terms of the liquidation of the colonial empire in the decades after the Second World War. But it also entailed simultaneous transformations to the self-representation of peoples and cultures all over the world, variously described as British, symbolised by the eclipse of the idea of ‘Greater Britain’. Originally coined by Charles Dilke’s 1868 travelogue of the same name, Greater Britain enjoyed widespread currency throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, before falling into disuse from the 1930s. But Greater British modes of thought, feeling and action persisted into the second half of the twentieth century, becoming embroiled in the global upheavals of imperial decline. Over a remarkably short time span, the ideas, assumptions and networks that had sustained an uneven and imperfectly imagined British world dissolved under the weight of the empire’s precipitate demise. Although these patterns and perspectives have been explored across a range of specific local and national contexts, this collection is the first to examine the wider mesh of interlocking British subjectivities that unravelled at empire’s end.

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Introduction
Introduction
Chapter 1: Maintaining racial boundaries
Chapter 1: Maintaining racial boundaries
Chapter 2: Cut loose
Chapter 2: Cut loose
Chapter 3: Entangled citizens
Chapter 3: Entangled citizens
Chapter 4: ‘How come England did not know me?’
Chapter 4: ‘How come England did not know me?’
Chapter 6: The birth of ‘white’ republics and the demise of Greater Britain
Chapter 6: The birth of ‘white’ republics and the demise of Greater Britain
Chapter 7: ‘King’s men’, ‘Queen’s rebels’ and ‘last outposts’
Chapter 7: ‘King’s men’, ‘Queen’s rebels’ and ‘last outposts’
Chapter 8: The tale of two Commonwealths?
Chapter 8: The tale of two Commonwealths?
Chapter 9: Greater Britain and its decline
Chapter 9: Greater Britain and its decline
Chapter 10: From Pax Britannica to Pax Americana?
Chapter 10: From Pax Britannica to Pax Americana?
Chapter 11: Boundaries of belonging
Chapter 11: Boundaries of belonging
Chapter 12: Persistence and privilege
Chapter 12: Persistence and privilege
Chapter 13: ‘The mouse that roared’
Chapter 13: ‘The mouse that roared’
Chapter 14: Falling Rhodes, building bridges, finding paths
Chapter 14: Falling Rhodes, building bridges, finding paths
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