The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain [Paperback]

Bernard Porter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0199299595 | ISBN-13: 978-0199299591 | Publication Date: September 28, 2006

The British empire was a huge enterprise. To foreigners it more or less defined Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its repercussions in the wider world are still with us today. One might expect this to have been reflected in her society and culture. This is the first book to examine this assumption critically against the broader background of contemporary British society. Bernard Porter, a leading imperial historian, argues that the empire had a far lower profile in Britain than it did abroad. He argues that though Britain was an imperial nation in this period, she was never a genuine imperial society.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"For any serious student of the British Empire, this book is indispensable reading."--John McBratney, The Historian

About the Author

Bernard Porter is an Emeritus Professor of History, University of Newcastle.

Product Details

• Paperback: 504 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199299595
• ISBN-13: 978-0199299591
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #653,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Social Class Determines Attitude Towards the Empire, February 7, 2010

By 

Patrick Yeung (Anaheim, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Paperback)

Porter found that `the relationship between Britain's external imperialism and her domestic society and culture was far more ambivalent, and `most people's attitudes towards the empire were derived from discourse related to their social class.' Therefore, `social class and function were the two main factors determining, not only how imperialist different kinds of Britons were, but - more importantly - how they regarded the empire.' The `upper and middle classes saw the empire mainly as an extension of their functions as rulers,' and the empire allowed the aristocrats to exercise paternalistic authority and provided the libertarian middle classes' with opportunities to `spread liberal enlightenment' and realize `the idea of `progress' from savagery to `civilization' for other peoples. Living in a `country with no idea of a common citizenship,' `working classes associated the empire with their rulers rather than with themselves.' The conclusion is that `only a small number of zealots had ever been committed imperialists' and `even her imperial rulers' mind-set grew out of their traditional functions within British society; this is the way "culture" can impact on imperialism; not by giving rise to it but influencing its character.'

Imperialism, according to Porter, `is not a reality but merely a convenient label' and since `most of the phenomena to which we attach the word were complex mixtures of various factors, different in different circumstances, forever shifting, and always amenable to deconstruction in terms of other influences and interests, it would be perfectly possible to do away with the `i' word altogether, and still find adequate ways of describing and accounting for what are supposed to be imperialism's characteristics and effects.' (10)

The `aristocracy supplied officers for the army, and a few colonial bishops, and was one of the classes investing in colonial stocks,' and the empire affected the upper-middle class the most - 76% of Indian Civil Service's personnel between 1860 and 1874 came from the middle alone. Because of the unique experience, `true imperial classes were remarkably cohesive; almost a caste within a class.' The general understanding was that `the uppers should rule broadly in ways they approved of, which mainly meant not obstructing the progress of free-market capitalism.' Empire was taught so little in the upper's public schools since the aristocrats were `rulers first, and imperialists second,' hence the `Asiatics and Africans are not presented very different from the British working classes. `

The `middle classes' libertarianism carried the seeds of imperialism within it' by accepting `culturism' - the belief in the advancement of everyone based not on their observations of or prejudices about those other peoples but on their understanding of their own nation's historical progress.' The middle classes distinguished between empire that grew out of conquests in the Spanish and Napoleonic kinds and the settlement colonies, where `pride in them was allowed' since they were `the natural consequences of the growth of the commercial spirit and of the ever increasing wants of an energetic people confined to a comparatively small island home.' The Victorian middle class were generally culturists as they `did not call the British empire an empire because they did not think of it as one.' Imperialism as they imagined it to be `was not only wrong morally, but also counter-productive, in that it acted as a break on the generation and spread of wealth - the prevalent contemporary belief in free trade.'

`Liberalism was no reliable prophylactic against imperialism.' `Liberty - not imperialism - lay at the core of British history, and the growth of liberty remained the central theme, to which the empire was grafted on: the latter presented as a means of extending' liberty. Porter argued that values grounded in domestic ideology such as cultural arrogance `can be related to imperialism, but is not necessarily imperialistic in itself.' Only `moralism enabled the middle classes to stomach the empire at all' and the chaos hypotheses- primitive societies were innately incapable of looking after themselves - left no non-imperial choice for Britain.' As a continuation of this ideology, commonwealthism of the twentieth century `make the empire more widely palatable domestically' because it assumed that colonial subjects needed `civilizing' so the aim was `to civilize, not to exploit.'.

As for the lower class, by examining the British education system, Porter found that it was `operated to enhance, and even to exacerbated, already existing social differences and experiences' with the social superiors. The `upper classes quite deliberately excluded the "lower" orders from any sense of identity with themselves or their imperial achievements; it was a serving rather than a participatory kind of imperialism.' As the electorate expanded in a process ushered by the Parliamentary Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884, the subsequent imperial propaganda push `failed to penetrate the crucial class barrier' because `the workers developed their own indigenous loyalties and cultures, almost totally apart from those of their rulers.' Therefore, `the "mafficking", singing jingo songs, celebrating Empire Day, scouting... all usually done for what else could be got out of these activities.'

`The lack of imperial commitment that characterized the majority of the British people from the 1940s onwards was simply a continuation of what had gone before.' This explained `why colonial policy had to be conducted at so low a key.' Porter concluded that the greatest impact of the empire was the delay of `Britain's evolution before this into a fully capitalist state.'

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awful title, awesome book, November 25, 2009

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reader 451 - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Paperback)

When I opened Absent-Minded Imperialists, I was steeling myself for another piece of neo-con propaganda on liberal imperialism and such nonsense. It isn't that at all. This is a scholarly work on the nature and domestic impact of the British empire. Nor is the book, thankfully, a piece of self-flagellation about the injustice of it all. We are by now sadly (or fortunately) well acquainted with the miseries of racism and exploitation imperialism entailed.

Porter's work looks at the existence of an imperial culture and society in Britain. His starting question is why decolonisation was not more traumatic at home. Porter arrives at the conclusion that an imperial culture only emerged in the late nineteenth century, and that there were two empires: a white settler empire and a colonial venture, both quite separate. He shows that, up to a point, few people manned or cared about the empire. Thus on nineteenth-century working-class emigration to Australia and Canada: `You do not starve people out, forcing them from their homes and loved ones to the unknown extremities of the earth, and then expect them to be proud of it. This is not the way imperialists are made.' Porter looks at correspondence (or the lack of it) and the experience of returning colonialists to show that they were cut off from those who stayed (I found that apposite; I have travelled and lived abroad and, in my experience, people couldn't give a d... what you saw or did).

But Absent-Minded Imperialists is remarkable because it is accessible cultural history. At a time when the scrutiny of ideas is all the rage, with academic books full of abstract concepts and words ending in `ism', this is both a cutting-edge work and an enjoyable read. Porter's writing is straightforward; his examples are down-to-earth. It is occasionally rip-roaringly funny. Porter dares quote Hitler praising the brutality of the colonial staff in India. He is darkly amusing on education and imperial shows. Apparently the title is a reference to a quip from the nineteenth-century historian Seeley, itself sarcastic. I don't know how Porter expected anyone to know that, and this leaves the puzzling choice of a title. Perhaps he picked it in a fit of absent-mindedness.