Alan Lester
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3614047 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Alan Lester |
| NOMBRES | Alan |
| APELLIDO | Lester |
| FIRMA | LESTER A |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Sussex |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 41 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 159 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 38 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 3 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1997 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2022 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
British Culture after Empire
Prayer, providence and empire
European settlers in Canada, Australia and South Africa said they were building 'better Britains' overseas. But devastating wars, rebellions, epidemics and natural disasters often threatened these new societies. It is striking that settlers in such environments turned to old traditions of collective prayer and worship to make sense of these calamities. At times of acute stress, colonial governments set aside whole days of fasting, humiliation and…
Ruling the World
Ruling the World tells the story of how the largest and most diverse empire in history was governed, everywhere and all at once. Focusing on some of the most tumultuous years of Queen Victoria's reign, Alan Lester, Kate Boehme and Peter Mitchell adopt an entirely new perspective to explain how the men in charge of the British Empire sought to manage simultaneous events across the globe. Using case studies including Canada, South Africa, the Carib…
J ane L ydon . Imperial Emotions
Jane Lydon’s slim volume, Imperial Emotions: The Politics of Empathy across the British Empire, focuses on the historical expression and manipulation of sympathy, pity, fellow feeling, and compassion, moving back and forth between Britain and the Australian colonies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She casts these emotions as collectively shaped and steered within social assemblages rather than individualized. This enables her to identi…
The Restructuring of the British Empire and the Colonization of Australia, 1832-8
Analysing a comprehensive shift in the governance of the British Empire in the mid 1830s, this article introduces the context for the following three articles in the Feature, 'Legacies of Slave Ownership'. This shift included the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean, upon which these articles concentrate, but also the restructuring of the East India Company. A reformed British parliament introduced transitions in the western and eastern halves o…
Monarchies and decolonisation in Asia
Dividing the Spoils
Building the French empire, 1600–1800
This study explores the shared history of the French empire from a perspective of material culture in order to re-evaluate the participation of colonial, Creole, and indigenous agency in the construction of imperial spaces. The decentred approach to a global history of the French colonial realm allows a new understanding of power relations in different locales. Traditional binary models that assume the centralization of imperial power and control…
Class, work and whiteness
This book explores the class experiences of white workers in Southern Rhodesia. Interest in white identity, power and privilege has grown since struggles over white land ownership in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, yet research has predominately focused on middle-class and rural whites. By critically building upon whiteness literature developed in the United States and synthesising theories of race, class and gender within a critical Marxist framewo…
Law across imperial borders
This book tells the story of British imperial agents and their legal powers on the British-Chinese frontiers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It offers new perspectives on the British presence in Yunnan and Xinjiang in western China and the legal connections to the British colonies of India and Burma. It examines how the mobility of people across borders forced consuls to adapt and shape law to accommodate them. Salt and opiu…
Reforming Everywhere and All at Once
In late 1837 and early 1838 the British imperial government was preparing for an empire-wide transition from bonded to nominally free labor. This article builds upon recent scholarship that promotes a holistic, global approach to this transition, by narrowing the temporal frame and expanding the spatial. We emphasize interconnectivity and simultaneity rather than chronological succession, and we analyze the governance, rather than the experience,…
Tracey Banivanua Mar, 1974–2017
Tracey Banivanua Mar, a Melburnian of Fijian (Lauan), Chinese and British descent and Associate Professor at La Trobe University, was a pioneering and profoundly influential historian. Her untimely
Settler colonialism, George Grey and the politics of ethnography
This article suggests that the spaces of British settler colonialism and metropolitan science were interconnected, underexamined, grounds upon which both ethnography and colonial governance developed. Focusing on the governmental and ethnographic activities of Sir George Grey during the mid-19th century it argues that the origins of ethnography and the specifically humanitarian governance of spaces invaded by settlers were co-constituted. Althoug…
Introduction
In line with the multi-disciplinary tenor of this volume, my aim in this Introduction is to weave between historiographical traditions that are often kept apart, focusing on the understandings that are generated when they are brought together. Imperial history has a longer and, some would say, more venerable tradition than environmental history, but this volume suggests that more explicit attention to their interpenetration might be worthwhile. 1…
Roundtable
In an age when both the traditional book form and the world that the British Empire made are arguably in crisis, it is remarkable that big books on British imperialism abound. Contributors to this roundtable assess scale and genre as well as content in their discussion of the claims and impact of John Darwin's tome, The Empire Project . John Darwin's response is also included
Indigenous Communities and Settler Colonialism
The new world created through Anglophone emigration in the 19th century has been much studied. But there have been few accounts of what this meant for the Indigenous populations. This book shows that
The East India Company and the Natural World
This book is the first to explore the deep and lasting impacts of the largest colonial trading company, the British East India Company on the natural environment. The contributors – drawn from a wide
Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance
How did those responsible for creating Britain's nineteenth-century settler empire render colonization compatible with humanitarianism? Avoiding a cynical or celebratory response, this book takes seriously the humane disposition of colonial officials, examining the relationship between humanitarian governance and empire. The story of 'humane' colonial governance connects projects of emancipation, amelioration, conciliation, protection and develop…
A Living Man From Africa
Personifying Colonial Governance
During the early nineteenth century, a number of seemingly antithetical developments shaped the British Empire and the wider world, among them evangelical humanism, antislavery and emancipation, the invasion of indigenous peoples’ lands by waves of British settlers, the rapid expansion of the settler colonies, and the consolidation of British rule and designs for the redevelopment of India. Against this backdrop, this article draws attention to s…
Relational Space and Life Geographies in Imperial History
This paper focuses on the personality and agency of George Arthur, situating them within broader discursive assemblages. It begins by examining new approaches to the role of the individual in society that are linked to the relativisation of our ideas of space and place. It then examines three sets of relationships that shaped Arthur and, to varying extents, that he gained the capacity to shape: military networks, discourses of the family and huma…
Humanism, race and the colonial frontier
Beginning with an engagement with Kay Anderson’s recent post‐humanist approach, I propose an alternative explanation for the rise of an innatist discourse of race around the mid‐nineteenth century. I argue that the shift to innatist ideas of racial difference has to be seen as a matter of specific geographies of political contestation and trans‐imperial mobilisation emerging in the spatial assemblages of colonial frontier zones during the early n…
Humanitarians and White Settlers in the Nineteenth Century
Empire
Colonial Networks, Australian Humanitarianism and the History Wars
The 'History Wars' have brought contests among Britons over the colonisation of Aboriginal land and people to the forefront of public consciousness in Australia. These contests, however, were the result of trajectories that criss-crossed British imperial spaces, connecting Australia with other settler colonies and the British metropole. A number of historians and historical geographers have recently employed the notion of the network to highlight…
Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance
How did those responsible for creating Britain's nineteenth-century settler empire render colonization compatible with humanitarianism? Avoiding a cynical or celebratory response, this book takes seriously the humane disposition of colonial officials, examining the relationship between humanitarian governance and empire. The story of 'humane' colonial governance connects projects of emancipation, amelioration, conciliation, protection and develop…
Obtaining the 'Due Observance of Justice
Within the context of contemporary discussion over geography and developmental ethics, this paper examines part of the genealogy of a modern British sense of responsibility for the plight of distant strangers. The frame of reference for this sense, known as humanitarianism, was first cast overseas through debates over the slave trade in the late 18th century, and its remit was further extended as a result of the contested processes of colonial se…
Reformulating Identities
This paper examines the formation of a colonial identity among settlers from the British Isles who were relocated to the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony in 1820. It suggests that material aspirations united certain of the settlers in a political programme, and thus began the erosion of imported class (and other) divisions. However, it argues that their establishment as a capitalist colonial class is an insufficient explanation for their const…
Humanism, race and the colonial frontier
Beginning with an engagement with Kay Anderson’s recent post‐humanist approach, I propose an alternative explanation for the rise of an innatist discourse of race around the mid‐nineteenth century. I argue that the shift to innatist ideas of racial difference has to be seen as a matter of specific geographies of political contestation and trans‐imperial mobilisation emerging in the spatial assemblages of colonial frontier zones during the early n…
Settler colonialism, George Grey and the politics of ethnography
This article suggests that the spaces of British settler colonialism and metropolitan science were interconnected, underexamined, grounds upon which both ethnography and colonial governance developed. Focusing on the governmental and ethnographic activities of Sir George Grey during the mid-19th century it argues that the origins of ethnography and the specifically humanitarian governance of spaces invaded by settlers were co-constituted. Althoug…
The East India Company and the Natural World
This book is the first to explore the deep and lasting impacts of the largest colonial trading company, the British East India Company on the natural environment. The contributors – drawn from a wide
Imperial Networks
Imperial Networks investigates the discourses and practices of British colonialism. It reveals how British colonialism in the Eastern Cape region was informed by, and itself informed, imperial ideas and activities elsewhere, both in Britain and in other colonies. It examines: * the origins and development of the three interacting discourses of colonialism - official, humanitarian and settler* the contests, compromises and interplay between these …
Personifying Colonial Governance
During the early nineteenth century, a number of seemingly antithetical developments shaped the British Empire and the wider world, among them evangelical humanism, antislavery and emancipation, the invasion of indigenous peoples’ lands by waves of British settlers, the rapid expansion of the settler colonies, and the consolidation of British rule and designs for the redevelopment of India. Against this backdrop, this article draws attention to s…
Settlers, the State and Colonial Power
Queen Adelaide Province consisted of some 7,000 square miles of Rarabe Xhosa territory annexed by the British Cape colonial government in May 1835 during the Sixth Frontier War. The province was held only until the end of 1836 when it was abandoned under pressure from the imperial government, but it represented the first British attempt to extend direct control over a large body of formerly independent Africans. No such ambitious scheme had ever …
The margins of order
This paper draws attention to the inconsistent development of segregationist strategies on the eastern Cape frontier during the nineteenth century. It argues that the primary thrust of official segregationist strategy shifted throughout the century in response to Xhosa resistance, the material demands of colonists and competing discourses surrounding ‘the Xhosa’. A periodisation is developed around three broad phases. In the first, the colonial s…
Indigenous Communities and Settler Colonialism
The new world created through Anglophone emigration in the 19th century has been much studied. But there have been few accounts of what this meant for the Indigenous populations. This book shows that
Colonial and postcolonial geographies
Reforming Everywhere and All at Once
In late 1837 and early 1838 the British imperial government was preparing for an empire-wide transition from bonded to nominally free labor. This article builds upon recent scholarship that promotes a holistic, global approach to this transition, by narrowing the temporal frame and expanding the spatial. We emphasize interconnectivity and simultaneity rather than chronological succession, and we analyze the governance, rather than the experience,…
Colonial Networks, Australian Humanitarianism and the History Wars
The 'History Wars' have brought contests among Britons over the colonisation of Aboriginal land and people to the forefront of public consciousness in Australia. These contests, however, were the result of trajectories that criss-crossed British imperial spaces, connecting Australia with other settler colonies and the British metropole. A number of historians and historical geographers have recently employed the notion of the network to highlight…
Colonial Settlers and the Metropole
The ways that British settlers in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, particularly those engaged in the extension of commercial sheep farming, constructed a certain discourse of colonialism during the first half of the 19th century are discussed. It is argued that this discourse was formulated, at least in part, in opposition to that of humanitarians within each colony and in Britain, who challenged settler capitalist practices on the fringe…
The Restructuring of the British Empire and the Colonization of Australia, 1832-8
Analysing a comprehensive shift in the governance of the British Empire in the mid 1830s, this article introduces the context for the following three articles in the Feature, 'Legacies of Slave Ownership'. This shift included the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean, upon which these articles concentrate, but also the restructuring of the East India Company. A reformed British parliament introduced transitions in the western and eastern halves o…
Building the French empire, 1600–1800
This study explores the shared history of the French empire from a perspective of material culture in order to re-evaluate the participation of colonial, Creole, and indigenous agency in the construction of imperial spaces. The decentred approach to a global history of the French colonial realm allows a new understanding of power relations in different locales. Traditional binary models that assume the centralization of imperial power and control…
Roundtable
In an age when both the traditional book form and the world that the British Empire made are arguably in crisis, it is remarkable that big books on British imperialism abound. Contributors to this roundtable assess scale and genre as well as content in their discussion of the claims and impact of John Darwin's tome, The Empire Project . John Darwin's response is also included
Introduction
(2003). Introduction: Historical Geographies of Southern Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 595-613
The margins of order
This paper draws attention to the inconsistent development of segregationist strategies on the eastern Cape frontier during the nineteenth century. It argues that the primary thrust of official segregationist strategy shifted throughout the century in response to Xhosa resistance, the material demands of colonists and competing discourses surrounding ‘the Xhosa’. A periodisation is developed around three broad phases. In the first, the colonial s…
From Colonization to Democracy
This work traces the developments of modern South African society, establishing the geographical and historical context in which adaptation has occurred. The author identifies and explains the most important historical continuities in South Africa, which have done most to shape present society. These include social geography, economic structure and external links and influences. The relationship between capitalism as a mode of production and apar…
Settlers, the State and Colonial Power
Queen Adelaide Province consisted of some 7,000 square miles of Rarabe Xhosa territory annexed by the British Cape colonial government in May 1835 during the Sixth Frontier War. The province was held only until the end of 1836 when it was abandoned under pressure from the imperial government, but it represented the first British attempt to extend direct control over a large body of formerly independent Africans. No such ambitious scheme had ever …
Reformulating Identities
This paper examines the formation of a colonial identity among settlers from the British Isles who were relocated to the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony in 1820. It suggests that material aspirations united certain of the settlers in a political programme, and thus began the erosion of imported class (and other) divisions. However, it argues that their establishment as a capitalist colonial class is an insufficient explanation for their const…
From Colonization to Democracy
From Colonization to Democracy
Global Capitalism, Social Dislocation and Cultural Discourse in South African History
Positioning the Missionary
Colonial Settlers and the Metropole
The ways that British settlers in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, particularly those engaged in the extension of commercial sheep farming, constructed a certain discourse of colonialism during the first half of the 19th century are discussed. It is argued that this discourse was formulated, at least in part, in opposition to that of humanitarians within each colony and in Britain, who challenged settler capitalist practices on the fringe…
Obtaining the 'Due Observance of Justice
Within the context of contemporary discussion over geography and developmental ethics, this paper examines part of the genealogy of a modern British sense of responsibility for the plight of distant strangers. The frame of reference for this sense, known as humanitarianism, was first cast overseas through debates over the slave trade in the late 18th century, and its remit was further extended as a result of the contested processes of colonial se…
Introduction
Making native space
Colonial and postcolonial geographies
Introduction
(2003). Introduction: Historical Geographies of Southern Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies: Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 595-613
South Africa Past, Present, and Future
Imperial Networks
Imperial Networks investigates the discourses and practices of British colonialism. It reveals how British colonialism in the Eastern Cape region was informed by, and itself informed, imperial ideas and activities elsewhere, both in Britain and in other colonies. It examines: * the origins and development of the three interacting discourses of colonialism - official, humanitarian and settler* the contests, compromises and interplay between these …
Colonial Networks, Australian Humanitarianism and the History Wars
The 'History Wars' have brought contests among Britons over the colonisation of Aboriginal land and people to the forefront of public consciousness in Australia. These contests, however, were the result of trajectories that criss-crossed British imperial spaces, connecting Australia with other settler colonies and the British metropole. A number of historians and historical geographers have recently employed the notion of the network to highlight…
Humanitarians and White Settlers in the Nineteenth Century
Empire
Relational Space and Life Geographies in Imperial History
This paper focuses on the personality and agency of George Arthur, situating them within broader discursive assemblages. It begins by examining new approaches to the role of the individual in society that are linked to the relativisation of our ideas of space and place. It then examines three sets of relationships that shaped Arthur and, to varying extents, that he gained the capacity to shape: military networks, discourses of the family and huma…
Humanism, race and the colonial frontier
Beginning with an engagement with Kay Anderson’s recent post‐humanist approach, I propose an alternative explanation for the rise of an innatist discourse of race around the mid‐nineteenth century. I argue that the shift to innatist ideas of racial difference has to be seen as a matter of specific geographies of political contestation and trans‐imperial mobilisation emerging in the spatial assemblages of colonial frontier zones during the early n…
A Living Man From Africa
Personifying Colonial Governance
During the early nineteenth century, a number of seemingly antithetical developments shaped the British Empire and the wider world, among them evangelical humanism, antislavery and emancipation, the invasion of indigenous peoples’ lands by waves of British settlers, the rapid expansion of the settler colonies, and the consolidation of British rule and designs for the redevelopment of India. Against this backdrop, this article draws attention to s…
The East India Company and the Natural World
This book is the first to explore the deep and lasting impacts of the largest colonial trading company, the British East India Company on the natural environment. The contributors – drawn from a wide
Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance
How did those responsible for creating Britain's nineteenth-century settler empire render colonization compatible with humanitarianism? Avoiding a cynical or celebratory response, this book takes seriously the humane disposition of colonial officials, examining the relationship between humanitarian governance and empire. The story of 'humane' colonial governance connects projects of emancipation, amelioration, conciliation, protection and develop…
History (33 obras) · Political science (31 obras) · Sociology (27 obras) · Law (23 obras) · Colonialism (21 obras) · Politics (19 obras) · Archaeology (17 obras) · Geography (15 obras) · History (15 obras) · Empire (14 obras)