Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire - Softcover

Cannadine, Professor Of History And Director Of The Institute Of Historical Research David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019515794X ISBN 13: 9780195157949

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 2002

Synopsis

With the return of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997, the empire that had lasted three hundred years and "upon which the sun never set" finally lost its hold on the world and slipped into history. But the question of how we understand the British Empire--its origins, nature, purpose, and effect on the world it ruled--is far from settled. In this incisive work, David Cannadine looks at the British Empire from a new perspective--through the eyes of those who created and ruled it--and offers fresh insight into the driving forces behind the Empire. Arguing against the views of Edward Said and others, Cannadine suggests that the British were motivated not only by race, but also by class. The British wanted to domesticate the exotic world of their colonies and to reorder the societies they ruled according to an idealized image of their own class hierarchies.

About this title

Review:

Like it or loathe it, there has never been any shortage of books about the British Empire. However, what David Cannadine's Ornamentalism shows is that until recently Britain itself has tended to be left out of the story. Serious academic research on the Empire has been dominated by specialists on Africa and India, or, in earlier generations, by experts on the 'white' colonies. Cannadine, the current Director of London University's Institute of Historical Research, and one of the most prolific historians of modern Britain, challenges this myopia in his provocative book. He argues that in its heyday--from the 1850s to the 1950s--the British Empire was based on a conscious effort to export a model of class hierarchy and status from home out to overseas possessions. The Indian Raj and the tropics of Africa were run as though they were the ornate stately homes or broad-acred landed estates of southern England. Readers of two of Cannadine's earlier bestselling books Aspects of Aristocracy and, more recently, on Class in Britain--will recognise and enjoy the extended airing he gives to these themes. As usual, Cannadine is at his best in chapters on the monarchy and honours system, when describing the whole flummery and symbolism of British imperial culture. Critics will no doubt complain that he marginalises the less flamboyant aspects of empire--race and economic exploitation most notably. And it might be objected that he has described only the "toffs'" view of empire. But whether you admire or abhor the Ornamentalism, there is plenty here to make you think.--Miles Taylor

Review:

"A lively account....As entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought-provoking."--Boston Globe
"Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties."--New Yorker
"A thoughtful and spirited book....In the privacy of their small worlds, away from the postmodernists and the radical historians writing 'peripheral' history, there can be heard fond retrospects of the empire and its pageantry by ordinary, unfashionable men and women. Were these people to tell us
what they recall of the empire's doings, I suspect that they would echo some of the truths of Cannadine's subtle and learned retrieval of that imperial history."--Fouad Ajami, The New York Times Book Review
"A study of British imperial attitudes that is light in size and tone but filled with weighty significance. In less than 200 pages of text, he has reopened the debate on the British Empire and has brought fresh insight into the ways that nations project their power around the globe."--The
Philadelphia Inquirer
"This is a lovely book, full of insights and unfamiliar perspectives. Were the rulers of Victoria's Empire more snobbish or more racist? They hardly knew the difference, for the common people of their own nation were very little less mysterious or threatening to them than the dark sullen masses of
India or Africa. At least this much can be said, though, and David Cannadine says it: The snobbery diluted and tempered the racism."--John Derbyshire, National Review
"Cannadine writes with insight, felicity and wit."--The Washington Post Book World
"A lively account....As entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought-provoking."--Boston Globe
"Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties."--New Yorker
"A thoughtful and spirited book....In the privacy of their small worlds, away from the postmodernists and the radical historians writing 'peripheral' history, there can be heard fond retrospects of the empire and its pageantry by ordinary, unfashionable men and women. Were these people to tell us
what they recall of the empire's doings, I suspect that they would echo some of the truths of Cannadine's subtle and learned retrieval of that imperial history."--Fouad Ajami, The New York Times Book Review
"A study of British imperial attitudes that is light in size and tone but filled with weighty significance. In less than 200 pages of text, he has reopened the debate on the British Empire and has brought fresh insight into the ways that nations project their power around the globe."--The
Philadelphia Inquirer
"This is a lovely book, full of insights and unfamiliar perspectives. Were the rulers of Victoria's Empire more snobbish or more racist? They hardly knew the difference, for the common people of their own nation were very little less mysterious or threatening to them than the dark sullen masses of
India or Africa. At least this much can be said, though, and David Cannadine says it: The snobbery diluted and tempered the racism."--John Derbyshire, National Review
"Cannadine writes with insight, felicity and wit."--The Washington Post Book World
"A lively account....As entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought-provoking."--Boston Globe
"Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties."--New Yorker
"A thoughtful and spirited book....In the privacy of their small worlds, away from the postmodernists and the radical historians writing 'peripheral' history, there can be heard fond retrospects of the empire and its pageantry by ordinary, unfashionable men and women. Were these people to tell us what they recall of the empire's doings, I suspect that they would echo some of the truths of Cannadine's subtle and learned retrieval of that imperial history."--Fouad Ajami, The New York Times Book Review
"A study of British imperial attitudes that is light in size and tone but filled with weighty significance. In less than 200 pages of text, he has reopened the debate on the British Empire and has brought fresh insight into the ways that nations project their power around the globe."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"This is a lovely book, full of insights and unfamiliar perspectives. Were the rulers of Victoria's Empire more snobbish or more racist? They hardly knew the difference, for the common people of their own nation were very little less mysterious or threatening to them than the dark sullen masses of India or Africa. At least this much can be said, though, and David Cannadine says it: The snobbery diluted and tempered the racism."--John Derbyshire, National Review
"Cannadine writes with insight, felicity and wit."--The Washington Post Book World
"A lively account....As entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought-provoking."--Boston Globe

"Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties."--New Yorker

"A thoughtful and spirited book....In the privacy of their small worlds, away from the postmodernists and the radical historians writing 'peripheral' history, there can be heard fond retrospects of the empire and its pageantry by ordinary, unfashionable men and women. Were these people to tell us what they recall of the empire's doings, I suspect that they would echo some of the truths of Cannadine's subtle and learned retrieval of that imperial history."--Fouad Ajami, The New York Times Book Review

"A study of British imperial attitudes that is light in size and tone but filled with weighty significance. In less than 200 pages of text, he has reopened the debate on the British Empire and has brought fresh insight into the ways that nations project their power around the globe."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"This is a lovely book, full of insights and unfamiliar perspectives. Were the rulers of Victoria's Empire more snobbish or more racist? They hardly knew the difference, for the common people of their own nation were very little less mysterious or threatening to them than the dark sullen masses of India or Africa. At least this much can be said, though, and David Cannadine says it: The snobbery diluted and tempered the racism."--John Derbyshire, National Review

"Cannadine writes with insight, felicity and wit."--The Washington Post Book World

"A lively account....As entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought-provoking."--Boston Globe

"Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties."--New Yorker

"A thoughtful and spirited book....In the privacy of their small worlds, away from the postmodernists and the radical historians writing 'peripheral' history, there can be heard fond retrospects of the empire and its pageantry by ordinary, unfashionable men and women. Were these people to tell us what they recall of the empire's doings, I suspect that they would echo some of the truths of Cannadine's subtle and learned retrieval of that imperial history."--Fouad Ajami, The New York Times Book Review

"A study of British imperial attitudes that is light in size and tone but filled with weighty significance. In less than 200 pages of text, he has reopened the debate on the British Empire and has brought fresh insight into the ways that nations project their power around the globe."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"This is a lovely book, full of insights and unfamiliar perspectives. Were the rulers of Victoria's Empire more snobbish or more racist? They hardly knew the difference, for the common people of their own nation were very little less mysterious or threatening to them than the dark sullen masses of India or Africa. At least this much can be said, though, and David Cannadine says it: The snobbery diluted and tempered the racism."--John Derbyshire, National Review

"Cannadine writes with insight, felicity and wit."--The Washington Post Book World

"Ornamentalism is well written and closely argued."--Southern Humanities Review

"Offers a fresh perspective on the British Empire and its creators."--Chicago Tribune

"Like everything that Cannadine writes...Ornamentalism is vigorous, stimulating, and bursting with ideas....It should be read by anyone who is interested in politics and society in the British Empire."--Philip Ziegler, The Spectator

"A fresh perspective on British history, in which Cannadine argues against racial interpretations of colonialism and maintains that the British Empire was sustained by a universal respect for social class....A controversial work that is sure to spark debate and painstaking and temperate argument, written with a good command of the facts and a remarkable sense of proportion."--Kirkus Reviews

"Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties."--New Yorker

"A lively account...The basic, and quite intriguing, argument is that the British designed their empire not on the basis of racial subjugation, but of class privilege--the same hierarchy of class privilege that guided and ruled British society itself...Ornamentalism is as entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought- provoking."--Boston Globe

"David Cannadine's Ornamentalism is so stimulating and original that it will now and forever after be read hand in hand with Edward Said's Orientalism. Cannadine's vision is quite different. He brilliantly recovers the world-view and social presuppositions of those who dominated and ruled the Empire, and thus restores the Empire to British social history. No other work succeeds as well in putting the history of Britain back into the history of the empire, and the history of the empire back into the history of Britain."--Wm. Roger Louis, Editor-in-Chief, The Oxford History of the British Empire

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 019515794X
• ISBN 13: 9780195157949
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288