Description
Book SynopsisThis study examines the ritual space of nineteenth-century royal tours of empire and the diverse array of historical actors who participated in them. It suggests that the varied responses to the royal tours of the nineteenth century demonstrate how a multi-centred British imperial culture was forged in the empire and was constantly made and remade, appropriated and contested. In this context, subjects of empire provincialised the British Isles, centring the colonies in their political and cultural constructions of empire, Britishness, citizenship and loyalty.
Trade Review‘This publication, the author’s first full-length monograph, ably demonstrates some of the possibilities of a localised and biographical methodological approach to social and cultural analyses. It marks a solid contribution to present historical understanding of how local and nationalist identities are adapted within the ritualised framework of royal tours, themselves increasingly prominent within concurrent and swiftly expanding spheres of inter-disciplinary scholarship on imperialism in all its guises. Royal tourists, colonial subjects and the making of a British world, 1860–1911 will be of great relevance to scholars examining the overlapping spheres of Australasian, African and South Asian colonial and post-colonial politics within the continuing legacy of the British imperial world. I look forward to reading more of this author’s work.’
Laura Cook, The Australian National University, Royal Studies Journal 2017
‘This account succeeds in revealing the long and storied past of the royal tour.’
Laura E.Nym Mayhall, The Catholic University of America, Victorian Studies (issue 60.1)Autumn 2017
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Table of ContentsPrologue
Introduction
1 British royals at home with empire
2 Naturalising British rule
3 Building new Jerusalems: global Britishness and settler cultures in South Africa and New Zealand
4 'Positively cosmopolitan': Britishness, respectability, and imperial citizenship
5 The empire comes home: colonial subjects and the appeal for imperial justice
Postscript and conclusion
Index
