Colonial Lives Across the British Empire: Imperial Careering in the Long Nineteenth Century - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521612373 ISBN 13: 9780521612371

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Synopsis

This volume uses a series of portraits of 'imperial lives' in order to rethink the history of the British Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It tells the stories of men and women who dwelt for extended periods in one colonial space before moving on to dwell in others, developing 'imperial careers'. These men and women consist of four colonial governors, two governors' wives, two missionaries, a nurse/entrepreneur, a poet/civil servant and a mercenary. Leading scholars of colonialism guide the reader through the ways that these individuals made the British Empire, and the ways that the empire made them. Their life histories constituted meaningful connections across the empire that facilitated the continual reformulation of imperial discourses, practices and cultures. Together, their stories help us to re-imagine the geographies of the British Empire and to destabilize the categories of metropole and colony.

About this title

Book Description

This volume uses a series of portraits of 'imperial lives' in order to rethink the history of the British Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Leading imperial historians examine how individuals and ideas moved between, shaped and were shaped by the various sites of empire.

About the Author

Alan Lester is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex. His previous books include South Africa Past, Present and Future (2000) and Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nineteenth Century South Africa and Britain (2001).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521612373
• ISBN 13: 9780521612371
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 396
• Editor: Lambert David, Lester Alan