Imperial expectations and realities: El Dorados, utopias and dystopias (Studies in Imperialism)

This volume explores how imperial powers established and expanded their empires through decisions that were often based on exaggerated expectations and wishful thinking, rather than on reasoned and scientific policies. It explores these exaggerations through the concepts of El Dorado, utopias and dystopias - undertakings based on irrational perceived values - in case studies from across the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and incorporates imperial traditions including Scottish, British, French, German, Italian and American. Various colonial spaces are considered, from the Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas, and in doing so, the contributors offer new insights into the nature of imperialism and colonial settlement. The book does not try to explain the broader motives of imperialism and colonial settlement, but instead focuses on understanding these ventures, in which unrealistic arguments were made that justified imperial and colonial interventions and envisaged rapid success. Such cases proved illusory and sometimes disastrous, and thus serve as deconstructive tools for demystifying imperial policy. These bad decisions were often twisted and turned to justify them differently, and there was a great reluctance to admit a flawed or failed policy, let alone reverse it. Imperial expectations and realities will prove useful to academics and students at all levels, and in a variety of specialisms within History, but particularly in comparitive imperialism and colonialism, and Policy Studies. This volume explores how imperial powers established and expanded their empires through decisions that were often based on exaggerated expectations and wishful thinking, rather than on reasoned and scientific policies. It uses case studies from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and incorporates imperial traditions including Scottish, British, French, German, Italian and American. Various colonial spaces are considered, from the Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas, and in doing so, the contributors offer new insights into the nature of imperialism and colonial settlement. The book does not try to explain the broader motives of imperialism and colonial settlement, but instead focuses on understanding these ventures, in which unrealistic arguments were made that justified imperial and colonial interventions and envisaged rapid success. Such cases proved illusory and sometimes disastrous, and thus serve as tools for demystifying imperial policy. These bad decisions were often twisted and turned to justify them differently, and there was a great reluctance to admit a flawed or failed policy, let alone reverse it. Imperial expectations and realities will prove useful to academics and students at all levels, and in a variety of specialisms within history, but particularly in comparative imperialism and colonialism, and policy studies The two worlds' model shows that the social politics of fatherhood have taken on a global significance and that the USA and Sweden represent two ends on an international continuum in ways of understanding fatherhood. Between two worlds of father politics represents America and Sweden as divergent and internationally influential 'father regimes' or us 'two worlds' of fatherhood. This book offers students a critical analytical framework for ways of thinking about fatherhood and new insights into why some welfare states have 'father-friendly' social policies and others do not. It makes an original contribution to the growing fields of welfare regime and gender studies by linking the epochal decline of patriarchal fatherhood to welfare state expansion over the course of the twentieth century In this way the book raises increasingly relevant questions about gender equality and the declining global legitimacy of the rule of fathers over boys and girls. This book will interest readers in the fields of social policy, gender studies, sociology, family policy and child-development and especially those interested in the field of comparative social policy. As well as raising questions about the legitimacy of religiously inspired neo-patriarchy, the book offers new theories about gender equality as a driver of welfare state development. Book jacket Cover 1 CONTENTS 8 FOUNDING EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 10 CONTRIBUTORS 12 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 16 CHAPTER ONE El Dorados, utopias and dystopias in imperialism and colonial settlement 18 CHAPTER TWO Darién and the psychology of Scottish adventurism in the 1690s 43 CHAPTER THREE Greek expectations: Britain and the Ionian Islands, 1815–64 64 CHAPTER FOUR Bambuk gold: General Faidherbe’s Senegalese chimera1 83 CHAPTER FIVE Salubrity and the survival of the Swan River Colony: health, climate and settlement in colonial Western Australia 106 CHAPTER SIX Germany’s El Dorado in the Pacific: metropolitan representations and colonial realities, 1884 –1914 122 CHAPTER SEVEN A place to speak the ‘language of heaven’? Patagonia as a land of broken Welsh promise 142 CHAPTER EIGHT Between heaven and earth: the German Templer colonies in Palestine 161 CHAPTER NINE Italy’s sexual El Dorado in Africa 183 CHAPTER TEN Dreaming in the desert: Libya as Italy’s promised land, 1911–70 208 CHAPTER ELEVEN The British Mesopotamian El Dorado: the restoration of the Garden of Eden 227 CHAPTER TWELVE Shattered images: French Indochina as a failed symbolic resource 245 A tribute to Eric Richards 265 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 275 INDEX 281 The essential message of the ‘two regimes'model is that the social politics of fatherhood have taken on a global significance and that the USA and Sweden represent two ends of an international continuum of ways of thinking about fatherhood. The key selling points of the two regimes model are its topicality, originality, its global appeal, and its particularised appeal to readers in the USA, the Nordic countries, Great Britain, Ireland, the European Union, Japan and China. The book offers students a comparative analytical framework and new insights into why some welfare states have ‘father-friendly'social policies and others do not. The book makes an original contribution to the growing fields of welfare regime and gender studies by linking the epochal decline of patriarchal fatherhood to welfare state expansion over the course of the twentieth century and it raises new questions about the legitimacy of religiously inspired neo-patriarchy. The essential message of the two regimes model is that the social politics of fatherhood have taken on a global significance and that the USA and Sweden represent two ends of an international continuum of ways of thinking about fatherhood. The key selling points of the two regimes model are its topicality, originality, its global appeal, and its particularised appeal to readers in the USA, the Nordic countries, Great Britain, Ireland, the European Union, Japan and China. The book offers students a comparative analytical framework and new insights into why some welfare states have father-friendly social policies and others do not. The book makes an original contribution to the growing fields of welfare regime and gender studies by linking the epochal decline of patriarchal fatherhood to welfare state expansion over the course of the twentieth century and it raises new questions about the legitimacy of religiously inspired neo-patriarchy. This Work Represents The Usa And Sweden As Two Ends On An International Continuum In Ways Of Thinking About Fatherhood. The 'two Worlds' Model Locates The Decline Of Patriarchal Male-breadwinning Fatherhood As A Core Concern Of Comparative Welfare State And Gender Studies. It Offers Historical Accounts Of The Development Of 'father-friendly' Parental Leave Policies In Sweden And Child Support Enforcement Policies In The Usa. Michael Rush. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [141]-157) And Index. Text In English. Offers students a comparative analytical framework for ways of thinking about fatherhood and new insights into why some welfare states have ‘father-friendly’ social policies and why others don’t. -- . A wide-ranging edited collection that interrogates colonial expansion, and the mismatch between intention, perception and hype, and the actual realities. -- .