Chains of Empire: English Public Schools, Masonic Cabalism, Historical Causality and Imperial Clubdom [Hardcover]

P.J. Rich (Author)

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'Your marvellous book' -- Edward W. Said

From the Publisher

The British Empire's and the English public schools' peculiar system of rituals and rewards had more in common than has been realised. In Chains of Empire, Paul Rich related this to, controversies about historical causality, morphic resonance, chaos, and the claims to influence of other bastions of the Imperial ethos such as the traditional gentlemen's clubs of St. James's. Rituals of Empire considers this symbolism in detail.

With the trilogy English Public Schools and Ritualistic Imperialism, Paul Rich has interjected himself into a lively controversy over the place of the English public schools in British history. Correlli Barnett blamed the English public schools for Britain's decline, while Cyril Connolly showed that the schoolboy syndrome was a part of British social history. Dr. Rich's Regency Press trilogy concerns more than the importance of the schools to Imperial rule: it points to new directions in historiography. In his first volume - Elixir of Empire: English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry, and Imperialism - he asserted that the schools espoused a ritualistic style that shaped the Empire. In the forthcoming Rituals of Empire, the public school symbolism reflected in the epipherma of the Empire is explored and Dr. Rich further substantiates his assertion that Freemasonry was involved with both British Imperialism and the public schools.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Regency Press (London & New York) Ltd (October 28, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0721208061
• ISBN-13: 978-0721208060
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,079,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Research, Deftly and Colorfully Portrayed, December 25, 2010

By 

Peter P. Fuchs (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chains of Empire: English Public Schools, Masonic Cabalism, Historical Causality and Imperial Clubdom (Hardcover)

It takes a vast amount of creativity and expertise to take what could be an amorphous topic, like the British Empire and Public Schools, and make it very specific by careful analysis. For that you need a theme, and tracing Masonic and other aspects of "Clubdom" is a potentially colorful one for sure; but would be very difficult to pull- off. Dr. Paul Rich is terrifically successful at doing just that in this wonderfully varied book. His analysis brings in elegant moments of philosophical reflection and sociological analysis, as well as general intellectual high -style, to produce a result which has a rigor of conclusion that one would scarcely expect from such a broad topic. By unflinching investigation he shows some valuable attributes to the ritual -making of an Empire, whose inner workings are usually written off as funny colonial characters in pith helmets. By dint of this analysis the reader can then draw his own conclusion about the relation of this ritual capacity to the better or worse aspects of that imperial character. But Rich's analysis is so ample that one can insightfully do so in both directions thanks to the same unflinching investigation. In this sense this colorful book avoids both political correctness, or by contrast, nostalgia. In this sense this must be one of the most cannily honest and careful books on the British Empire ever written.