Empire, Cultures and Identities in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Britain

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, historians have sought to gauge how the experience of establishing an empire overseas impacted upon the ways that British people thought about themselves and the world around them. As evidence has accumulated, so an increasingly heated historical debate about the exact significance of that source material has been generated. This article looks at where this controversy has taken us, assessing the range of evidence available and the different viewpoints adopted by various historians. It argues that, rather than present our conclusions in polarised terms, we need to acknowledge the wide range of imperial influences working on multiple British cultures and identities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moreover, given the problematic nature of the available evidence, we should acknowledge the difficulties inherent in any attempt to gauge the impact of those influences. Empire may well have helped to shape British cultures and identities, but it is not clear that it did so in a simple fashion, or that we have sufficient evidence to come to firm conclusions about its impact.