European empires and the people : popular responses to imperialism in France, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy

The European scramble for colonies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was driven by rather more than the interests of an elite, aristocratic and bourgeois. This book is about the 'colonisation of consciousness'. It surveys in comparative form the transmission of imperial ideas to the public in six European countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book offers six case studies on France, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy, providing parallel studies of the manner in which colonial ambitions and events in the respective European empires were given wider popular visibility. The book demonstrates the inter-war years that saw the stepping up of imperial propaganda throughout the surviving imperial powers. Inspired by the directions of research pioneered by John MacKenzie, specialists of the French Empire started to combine methodologies from social and cultural history to revise the perception of French popular imperialism. Germany's imperialism is analysed along the axes of mobility and migration, 'race' and the sciences, commodities and markets, the missions and imperialist social formations, and the vast field of popular culture. What sets popular imperialism in Belgium apart from others is the remarkable yet ironic reverence reserved for Leopold II. Power rivalries, ingenious if tricky diplomacy, and Leopold's tenacity resulted in recognition of his rule over much of the Congo around the time of the Berlin conference. So far as the peoples of Europe were concerned, the imperial experience helped, paradoxically, to further 'Eurocentrism' and install the naturalisation of Europeanness as 'whiteness'. This Is The First Book To Survey In Comparative Form The Transmission Of Imperial Ideas To The Public In Six European Countries In The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries. The Chapters, Focusing On France, Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany And Italy, Provide Parallel Studies Of The Manner In Which Colonial Ambitions And Events In The Respective European Empires Were Given Wider Popular Visibility. The International Group Of Contributors, Who Are All Scholars Working At The Cutting Edge Of These Fields, Place Their Work In The Context Of Governmental Policies, The Economic Bases Of Imperial Expansion, Major Events Such As Wars Of Conquest, The Emergence Of Myths Of Heroic Action In Exotic Contexts, Religious And Missionary Impulses, As Well As The New Media Which Facilitated Such Popular Dissemination. Among These Media Were The Press, International Exhibitions, Popular Literature, Educational Institutions And Methods, Ceremonies, Church Sermons And Lectures, Monuments, Paintings And Much Else. Front matter Contents List of illustrations Contributors Introduction by John MacKenzie Exalting imperial grandeur: the French Empire and its metropolitan public Passion or indifference? Popular imperialism in Britain: continuities and discontinuities over two centuries Songs of an imperial underdog: imperialism and popular culture in the Netherlands, 1870–1960 Learning to love Leopold: Belgian popular imperialism, 1830–1960 Imagination and beyond: cultures and geographies of imperialism in Germany, 1848–1918 ‘The peasants did not think of Africa’: empire and the Italian state’s pursuit of legitimacy, 1871–1945 Afterword by Matthew G. Stanard Index The first book to survey, in a comparative form, the transmission of imperial ideas to the public in six European countries. It provides fascinating parallel studies of France, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy, examining the media and the content through which events in colonial empires were broadcast into the popular domain. -- .