topics: |  history | british-empire | colonial | india | africa

Review

A sustained defence of imperial myths; the last gasp of an imperial tradition
going back to JS Mill's History of British India...  what is fascinating
about the book that it was written in the late 20th century, and not in
the 1800s.  the spirit lives on, i am sure, despite the clamour of the
post-colonialists... 

The preface opens with: 

     Now that the British, having lost an Empire, are seeking a new
     role... the doubts, hostility and even the shame of some, the
     paternalism and defensive regret of others apparent since WWII, may now
     give place to a calmer assessment.

That calmer assessment turns out to be a bravado defence of colonial conquest
and expansion across the globe, often couched in the brashest non-PC
language; revealing prejudices at every turn, reviling other european powers
("the rottenness of the portuguese", p.41) in the same breath as the
barbarian peoples (the "amerindians were incapable of sustained labour";
"politically decadent society" of the Ceylonese 396). 
The only objective is to regain a sense of pride in the empire. 

     Far from being proud of the greatest sea-borne empire in world history,
     of having founded great nations of European stock in other continents,
     of having often set standards of fair dealing and justice over ancient
     civilizations and barbaric peoples... many of the post-imperial British
     feel a retrospective guilt...

As empires go, the British has been relatively humane.  13
    [this is certainly a vigorous thesis in much of the colonial
    historiography, and is also a widely believed in erstwhile colonies such
    as india.  but in part at least, it is turning out to be a construct of
    what gautam chakravarty has called the creation of the british
    imagination. ]

its influence went much deeper than the only other empire of comparable size
- that of the medieval Mongols. 14
  [this is another myth that is increasingly challenged in modern
  historiography.  for a reassessment of the impact of the mongols, see john
  weatherford's Genghis khan and the making of the modern world:
       Under the widespread influences from the paper and printing, gunpowder
       and firearms, and the spread of the navigational compass and other
       maritime equipment, Europeans experienced a Renaissance, literally a
       rebirth, but it was not the ancient world of Greece or Rome being
       reborn. It was the Mongol Empire, picked up, transferred, and adapted
       by the Europeans to their own needs and culture. p.237

bowle has gung-ho about every colonial enterprise, including slavery, which
is justified based on a racist remark: 
    To ship negroes to the american plantations seemeed the obvious thing to
    do, since the amerindians were incapable of sustained labour... 59

In 1602, a Dutch observer would compare Benin (the city) in size to
Amsterdam, his highest complement. p.60

[what struck me in reading the text is the role of drugs in empire.  tobacco
sustained the virginia colonies, the slave trade was paid for in rum, and the
role of opium in the china trade.  today, we rile against the afghans for
growing poppies, but widespread farming of poppies is the inheritance of
free-market driven empire.]

Henry Morgan, the notorious pirate, was knighted by Charles II, and sent back
to the Caribbean as Lt-Governor.  156

other reviews

Kirkus: A thumping, old-fashioned defense of imperialism and those robust,
intrepid Englishmen who laid the foundations for British hegemony over one
fourth of the globe, even if most of the Empire was acquired "defensively,"
not perhaps in a fit of absent-mindedness, but certainly in a
"piecemeal, empirical and casual way."

Bowle divides British overseas expansion into two distinct phases. The
first, from the Elizabethans to the American Revolution, is the period of the
old mercantile empire when economic nationalism was the spur and freebooters
like Hawkins, Drake and Clive were free to plunder at will: Bowle sees this
as a heroic age of enterprise with the British fighting off Spanish, Dutch
and French rivals to emerge as top dogs. The later Empire, based on Free
Trade and the Bible, was more complex; for the first time Englishmen were
forced to worry about self-determination for lesser breeds and parliamentary
commissions were always ready to curb the magnificent daring and egotism of a
Kitchener or a Rhodes.

Both in India and Africa Englishmen were repeatedly "forced" to annex
territories and assume political domination. Actually Bowle finds this last,
jingoistic period of imperialism somewhat graceless and vulgar though he
points with pride to the steady progress of good government in Canada,
Australia and New Zealand--countries rescued from neolithic savagery by
white-skinned English colonizers. Nowhere in the book does Bowle so much as
hint that in India, Cyprus and Palestine the British manipulated and
exploited ethnic enmities the better to perpetuate their sovereignty. And,
most remarkable, Ireland, Britain's first and last colony, is barely
mentioned and then only to blame their misfortunes on their "strategic"
position which left the British no choice: "the rulers of England had to
control it." In short, a resounding testimonial to the Pax Britannica and the
factories, steamships, telegraphs and parliamentary procedures which Mother
England scattered hither and yon.