For over two decades, Manchester Studies in Imperialism has been a trailblazer in the realm of imperial history. Positioned firmly at the forefront, this series has illuminated the annals of history and transformed our understanding of empire.
Pioneering perspectives
The Studies in Imperialism series has embarked on a transformative journey, reshaping not only British history but also the vast landscape of imperial histories. It has boldly expanded boundaries, delving into uncharted territories, and shining a light on subjects that were once overlooked. More importantly, it has masterfully unveiled the intricate and inseparable relationships between these domains.
A treasury of knowledge
Within the pages of Manchester Studies in Imperialism lies a treasure trove of scholarly exploration. It unveils the rich tapestry of cultural encounters between colonisers and the colonised, shedding light on the intricate web of power that flows through the production and organisation of colonial knowledge. It unravels the complex construction of identity, both at the heart and on the peripheries of empire.
2025 Manchester Studies in Imperialism
The introduction begins by positioning the volume in relation to current debates and developments in a number of related fields: religious history, biblical studies, postcolonialism, literary studies, imperial history and histories of scholarship and the book. Making a claim for the centrality of biblical narratives to the shaping of modern notions of race, nation and empire in the nineteenth century, the introduction discusses some of the reasons why this aspect has been downplayed in accounts of ‘scientific racism’ on one hand and the emergence of European empires on the other. Introducing the two interlinked sections of the book, we stress the importance of biblical ideas of exile, peoples and ‘lands’ to notions of identity and belonging in a variety of nineteenth-century contexts. Furthermore, we explore the explosion of textual transmission and translation in the period, which allowed these tropes and themes to be transmitted across global networks of transport, power and print.
Medieval and early modern historiography had encouraged the integration of biblical and Gaelic chronologies, and throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Irish antiquarians, poets and romantic nationalists began to think of themselves as ‘Milesians’, the displaced descendants of a wandering Phoenician tribe. This chapter focuses on the British Israelites, a loose Protestant sect united by their belief that the Anglo-Saxon race was descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel and that biblical prophecies on the future of ‘Israel’ referred to the British Empire. The British Israelites argued that the ancient Irish king, Ollamh Fodhla, was actually the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. This myth-history was deployed in support of the British-Israel claim that the Anglo-Saxons were the true heirs to the biblical Kingdom of David. Yet despite their fascination with the mysteries of pre-Christian Ireland, most British Israelites were arch-imperialists, staunch anti-Catholics and opponents of Irish Home Rule. The chapter explores shifting notions of British and Irish racial identity in relation to scriptural genealogy, and argues that Old Testament narratives were co-opted to serve conflicting political and religious agendas.
The rapid growth in popularity of the Protestant, Nonconformist missionary movement among the Cape Colony’s indigenous population, the Khoesan, coincided with Britain’s efforts to remould the Cape into a territory which exhibited British characteristics. Cape society had already been structured according to a racial hierarchy, though race was not yet the sole determinant of belonging as it was to become from the 1840s onwards. Christian identity held important sway in the Cape Colony during the early nineteenth century and was an important marker of social status and inclusion. For Khoesan descended from distinct, precolonial ethnic lineages, biblical literacy offered a language through which a new, Christian ‘nation’ could be imagined and articulated, and which could challenge settler–colonial hierarchies of power. This chapter explores how the Bible became a site of contestation in the struggle over the ownership of Protestant Christianity in the Cape Colony during the early nineteenth century. Khoesan acceptance of the Bible did not simply amount to submission to Western domination. Rather, Khoesan interpretations of scripture positioned the Bible as a disruptive, anti-colonial text. By confirming the Bible as a potent repository of symbolism and imagery, Khoesan sought to challenge racially based notions of Christian identity.
While historians of early modern Britain have long noted the ubiquity of Old Testament typology in religious-political discourse, its enduring potency thereafter has received much less attention. In part this is because of the flexibility of such rhetoric, for while posing as a ‘new Israel’ worked for embattled states like sixteenth-century England, this was not the only rhetorical option available; nor was it always the most apposite comparison, especially in the era of British global hegemony. This chapter argues that maritime imperial expansion lent particular weight to one set of passages, those concerning ancient seagoing Tyre and Tarshish. What they stood for was seldom stable: they were read prophetically, as literally presaging Britain’s current greatness; typologically, as warnings against the besetting sins of commercial greed and pride; and moralistically, as examples of the problems caused by imperial overstretch. I seek to show that British people in the nineteenth century continued to map the world and their place in it in biblical terms, to an extent that has sometimes been underplayed. What that meant, however, was increasingly open to interpretation.
Chapter 5 examines court cases in Xinjiang (1912–25). Consular officials worked a compromise between administering consular law, carrying out imperial objectives and allowing the jurisdiction of local custom over British subjects. Consuls were aided by aqsaqals, senior merchants who resolved minor disputes of the British communities in various towns. Consuls not only incorporated this indigenous administrative practice into British administration, but also arranged the aqsaqal system that had clear influences from Indian community organisation. The chapter therefore shows how Indian communities and Indian influences shaped British administration in Xinjiang.
The Amherst embassy to China has long been viewed as a major diplomatic failure in Britain’s early relations with China. This chapter concentrates on the greatly overlooked aspect of the Amherst mission – the delegation’s discoveries in China after the official proceedings were concluded. Since the embassy was given unprecedented freedom of movement during its four-month return journey from Beijing to Canton, British observers were able to explore the interior of China and to communicate more fully with the Chinese government and people than ever before. As a consequence, the Amherst embassy not only provided valuable first-hand observations which increased and improved Britain’s knowledge of China, but developed the view that the Qing government was the chief obstacle to the progress of Chinese civilisation and to the general welfare of the Chinese people. These important perceptions laid the foundation for future changes in Sino-British relations and led, indirectly, to the outbreak of the Opium War.
The sixth chapter traces the decline of British jurisdiction in the province (1917–39). The Chinese authorities in Xinjiang challenged British consular rights and consuls responded by managing this erosion of their powers. Consuls based their approach to managing this decline on the needs of the British community living in Xinjiang, as well as on practical and political considerations. The chapter ends by showing how the trading community that moved between India and Xinjiang declined rapidly and thereafter ended consular rights in the province.
The book makes three arguments. First, it argues that frontier consuls played a key role in creating forms of transfrontier legal authority. Second, it demonstrates that the impetus behind these legal adaptations was the perceived challenges brought by the movement of British subjects and goods across frontiers. Local and transfrontier mobility therefore defined and shaped British jurisdiction across the frontier. Finally, British authority in the frontiers embraced and worked alongside other local norms and legal structures. This book is therefore the story of British consuls at the edge of the British and Chinese Empires and the nature of their legal powers.
The third chapter explores how Tengyue consuls worked in a court to resolve Sino-British cases involving local populations (1909–35). The court was a reflection of the coming together of local laws and British and Chinese jurisdiction. The consular role was to work alongside Chinese officials and act as linguistic and cultural mediators between these officials and their Burmese counterparts. They therefore balanced British imperial objectives – such as furthering colonial claims to land – with efforts to ensure Chinese cooperation in the resolution of transfrontier cases.
This book examines British imperial attitudes towards China during their early
encounters from 1792 to 1840. It makes the first attempt to bring together the
political history of Sino-Western relations and cultural studies of British
representations of China, as a new way of understanding the origins of the Opium
War – a deeply consequential event which arguably reshaped relations between
China and the West for the next hundred years. The book focuses on the crucial
half-century before the war, a medium-term (moyenne durée) period which scholars
such as Kitson and Markley have recently compared in importance to that of the
American and French Revolutions.
This study investigates a range of
Sino-British political moments of connection, from the Macartney embassy
(1792–94), through the Amherst embassy (1816–17) to the Napier incident (1834)
and the lead-up to the opium crisis (1839–40). It examines a wealth of primary
materials, some of which have not received sufficient attention before, focusing
on the perceptions formed by those who had first-hand experience of China or
possessed political influence in Britain. The book shows that through this
period Britain produced increasingly hostile feelings towards China, but at the
same time British opinion formers and decision-makers disagreed with each other
on fundamental matters such as whether to adopt a pacific or aggressive policy
towards the Qing and the disposition of the Chinese emperor. This study, in the
end, reveals how the idea of war against the Chinese empire was created on the
basis of these developing imperial attitudes.