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The book shows how people have come to approach the writing of imperial histories in the early twenty-first century. It explores the social and political contexts that informed the genesis and development of the Studies in Imperialism series, and the conceptual links it has sought to forge between empire and metropolitan culture. The book provides an insightful account of John MacKenzie's 'Orientalism': the problems of 'power' and 'agency'. The 'MacKenziean moment' needs to be read historically, as a product of the 'delayed arrival of decolonising sensibilities', where contemporary popular phenomena and new types of scholarship integrated Britain and its empire. Sexuality made early appearances in the Series through the publication of 'Empire and Sexuality'. MacKenzie's 'Empire of Nature', 'Imperialism and the Natural World', and 'Museums and Empire' convey the impact of his scholarship in the themes of exploration, environment and empire. The historical geographies of British colonialism have enjoyed a prominent place in the Series, and the book explores the ways in which different 'spatial imaginations' have been made possible. Discussions on colonial policing during the depression years, and on immigrant welfare during and after decolonisation, take their cue from MacKenzie's European Empires and the People. The later nineteenth century witnessed the interaction of many diasporas, which in turn produced new modes of communication. By dealing with the idea of the 'Third British Empire' and the role of the Indian press during and after the British Raj, the book repositions British imperial histories within a broader set of global transformations.
Studies in Imperialism – the reciprocal influences and complex connections that arose from the traffic of people between metropolis and colony – to explore immigrant welfare systems during and after decolonisation. It is explicitly comparative, framed around the experiences of Britain and France, and focuses on the crucial matter of immigrant housing, an issue at once economic, political, social and
treated migrants from the ‘new’ Commonwealth during the era of decolonisation for immigrant welfare – and related debates about ‘Britishness’ – today. ‘New’ Commonwealth immigration to Britain post-1945 The 1948 British Nationality Act, which granted ‘new’ Commonwealth immigrants the right to settle, vote and access public services in Britain represented
, or as open-ended as ‘interconnected’ or ‘networked’ history. Martin Thomas’s chapter on colonial policing during the depression years, and Jim House’s and Andrew Thompson’s on immigrant welfare during and after decolonisation, take their cue from John MacKenzie’s recently published European Empires and the People, which surveys in comparative form the transmission of imperial ideas to the public of
had to grapple with the legacy of empire; it also provides insights into how contemporary British immigration policy with its array of border controls, integration policies and anti-discrimination legislation is influenced today by the vestiges of decolonisation. In other words, multiculturalism was defined, in part, by the British government’s responses to the interplay between immigrant welfare, the