REVIEW-ESSAY ON A BOOK

     In the latter portion of the 19^th century, Great Britain embarked upon an era of territorial expansion, bringing vast holdings in Asia and Africa under Imperial influence and control.  Accordingly, this era has been referred to by historians as the “third British Empire.” (Arnstein, 173)  While motivations and justifications for this colonial activity were undoubtedly many and various, they may be gathered into two main categories – economic expansion and British notions of social, religious, and political superiority.  These concepts held ready appeal for – respectively – both Conservative and Liberal political parties.  While Prime Minister Salisbury charged the government with the task of “mak[ing] smooth the paths of British commerce,” Kipling advocated the taking up of “the White Man’s burden” in what Walter L. Arnstein refers to as “Peace Corps-style idealism.” (Arnstein, 157, 7)  The expansion of Empire, then, was able to garner support within the British populace by both serving a broad array of constituencies and appealing to pre-existing biases. 

     The degree to which that support was enhanced by a conscious lobbying effort on the part of various entities within British society was carefully chronicled by John M. MacKenzie in Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion – 1880-1960.  While MacKenzie acknowledged that the various propaganda activities he catalogued frequently “attempted to satisfy [a] craving” that had already developed organically within the British populace, he turned his focus primarily to the manner in which the public was “educate[d]…to a national consensus which included…a[n] imperial ethos as part of an immutable order.” (MacKenzie, 29, 10-1)  MacKenzie devoted each of the nine chapters in his book to a distinct format or collection of related platforms which were employed in an attempt to enhance interest in and galvanize support for Imperial activity.

     MacKenzie first examined what might be referred to as consumer goods.  Facilitated by a sharp increase in the availability and consumption of mass-produced household products, citizens were inundated with a steady supply of packaging and décor motifs featuring Imperial themes.  Some products (soap, tea, meats, etc.) lent themselves to this tactic due to the fact that they were imported from Imperial holdings.  More tellingly, other items, with no ready connection to lands abroad (plates, mugs, notepaper, etc.), were nonetheless festooned with the trappings of Empire.  Taken together, these two categories of consumer products suggested a dialectic between marketer and consumer – with products both fulfilling an existing fascination with exotic lands and creating a more deeply imbedded following.  A contemporary advertisement for Bovril, a beef extract used to feed troops abroad, claimed that “Lord Robert’s route had spelled out the word Bovril across the Orange Free State.” (MacKenzie, 26)  These conditions helped to create what MacKenzie referred to as the “servants of ideology” and Hobson defined as the “psychology of jingoism.” (MacKenzie, 35, 25)

     Contemporary popular entertainment was also utilized as a prevalent form of boosterism that successfully penetrated into the working classes.  While concerns over operating licenses and the watchful eye of the royal censor may have shaped performances to some degree, MacKenzie maintained that the content provided in music hall shows – the late 19^th century counterpart of the modern-day Cineplex – was largely a response to popular tastes.  Inherently dramatic endeavors like exploration, inter-cultural contact and conflict, and military exploits – all occurring in unfamiliar and exotic locales – were all frequent topics on the stages of the day.  Furthermore, Imperial “others” provided ready-made villains in popular melodramas, playing into existing attitudes of cultural and racial superiority and replacing the class antagonism that had served the same purpose in the earlier part of the century. (MacKenzie, 45)  MacKenzie further reported that performances that evinced an “ideology of pride in race…the justice of British rule…and the need to defend the Empire against aggressive rivals” were met with “wildly enthusiastic audiences.” (MacKenzie, 60) 

     British citizens were further propagandized by various Imperial exhibitions which were typically sponsored by “commercial interests” and were “a celebration of the white man’s successful transplantation to the farthest reaches of the globe.” (MacKenzie, 97, 100)  These displays, unlike the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, were less a showcase for British ingenuity and more an advertisement for opportunities made available to consumers by penetration into foreign markets.  The Empire was portrayed as “an interlocking economic unit” so that support for Imperial political policy could be packaged with an “economic justification.” (MacKenzie, 107, 118)  For the sponsors of these exhibitions and, one must assume, for many of those who visited, Imperial activity did not mean Christianizing the heathen nor civilizing the savage, but rather opening of markets and claiming of resources. 

     Ulterior motives behind the propaganda campaign in support of Empire can also be seen in the existence of “emigration societies” for “groups considered to be disadvantaged in Victorian Britain”.  These organizations, which enjoyed government approval, encouraged and, in some cases, facilitated movement to colonial lands. (MacKenzie, 160)  Emigration served two purposes: enhanced Anglicization of Imperial holdings; and the bleeding off of those societal elements potentially predisposed to the type of unrest that had infected the Continent in the middle decades of the 19^th century.  This combination was characterized by MacKenzie as the “essential bridge between the cult of National Efficiency and Social Imperialism.” (MacKenzie, 160) 

     Those that did not emigrate were nonetheless schooled on the virtues and advantages of Empire – and in the case of the children of Britain – schooled quite literally.  A “core ideology” of Imperialist sensibilities became embedded into the textbooks and readers of British schools. (MacKenzie, 174)  The Royal Colonial Institute sponsored children’s essay contests, published textbooks, and lobbied headmasters to “introduce Imperial studies” into their classrooms. (MacKenzie, 175)  One youth of the era, reflecting in retrospect, gushed that “most of us boys were imperialists…with an immense pride in the achievements of our race.” (MacKenzie, 194)  When not in school, children found that the popular literature of the day featured many of the same themes as that offered in school.  Much like the evolution experienced in the theatre, dramatic arcs in children’s stories shifted from internal, cross-class conflicts to “villains… that were invariably foreign…[with] evil-sounding names, strange accents, and implied racial disabilities.” (MacKenzie, 205)  Concepts of Social Darwinism, which condoned and even prescribed the domination of “inferior races”, were thus woven into the formative experiences of Britain’s children. 

     Imperial activity served functions for various – and at times previously adversarial - entities within British society.  The pervasiveness of Imperial propaganda cataloged by MacKenzie suggests a consensus (admittedly not universal) among these parties and across classes.  An “imperial nationalism…through which the British defined their own unique superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the world” was forged and promulgated. (MacKenzie, 253)  Particularly targeted for the propaganda of Empire were the working classes and the young, those groups most likely, respectively, to be resistant to the status quo and those most counted on to carry it forward. 

* A possible theme for my paper is criticism of Imperialism from the political left and based on a critique of the capitalist underpinnings of Empire a la Hobson.

Bibliography

Arnstein, Benjamin. Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830 to the Present. Boston:

     Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.

Baumgart, Winfried. Imperialism: The Idea and reality of British and French Colonial

     Expansion, 1880-1914. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

     An examination of the theories which justified colonial activity by Great Britain and

     France in the period from 1880 to 1914. The book chronicles differing definitions of

     Imperialism (economic, political, socio-psychological) and how they differ as well as

     How they serve to support or critique Imperial activity.

MacKenzie, John M. Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public

     Opinion, 1880-1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.

Thorton, A.P. The Imperial Idea and Its Enemies: A study in British Power. New York:

     St. Martin’s Press, 1985.

     Presents a history of the Imperial activity undertaken by Great Britain in the middle of

      the 19^th century as well as the development of theories and ideologies that opposed it.

     The book also traces the impact of various events that challenged the assumptions of

     Imperial thought.