Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T06:13:13.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The British Empire

from Part I - Imperial and Postcolonial Settings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

By
Krishan Kumar
Edited by
Cathie Carmichael ,
Matthew D'Auria  and
Aviel Roshwald
Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Get access

Summary

Empire, in the Western tradition, was a unitary and universal thing. There was and could be only one empire at any one time, and it was, in principle at least, a world empire. In this case, all roads led to and from Rome. Herodotus had introduced the idea, if not the term, of translatio imperii, the transfer of empire from one ruler to another. In his account the succession was from the Assyrians to the Medes, to the Persians. Later writers saw the Macedonians, in the person of Alexander the Great, as successor to the Persians, and later still it was relatively easy to see the Romans, with their admiration for Greek culture, as heirs to the Hellenistic empire of Alexander.

Keywords

EmpireBritish EmpireImperialismNationalismIdeologies of EmpireOverseas empiresDecolonization
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Nationhood and Nationalism , pp. 88 - 107
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Armitage, David, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London: Pimlico, 1994).Google Scholar
Darwin, John, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World System, 1830–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Niall, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Penguin, 2004).Google Scholar
Jasanoff, Maya, Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East, 1750–1850 (London: Fourth Estate, 2005).Google Scholar
Kumar, Krishan, The Making of English National Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louis, W. R. (general editor), The Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998–1999).Google Scholar
MacKenzie, J. M., Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Porter, Bernard, The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Thompson, Andrew (ed.), Britain’s Experience of Empire in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
Ward, Stuart (ed.), British Culture and the End of Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Wilson, Kathleen, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (London, Routledge, 2003).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×