UC Berkeley GAIA Books Title The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6wj6r222 Journal GAIA Books, 21 ISBN 9780984590957 Authors Gunn, Simon Vernon, James Publication Date 2011-03-15 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain Edited by Simon Gunn and James Vernon Published in association with the University of California Press “A remarkable achievement. This ambitious and challenging collection of tightly interwoven essays will find an eager au- dience among students and faculty in British and imperial history, as well as those interested in liberalism and moder- nity in other parts of the world.” Jordanna BaILkIn, author of The Culture of Property: The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern Britain “This volume investigates no less than the relationship of liberalism to Britain’s rise as an empire and the first modern nation. In its global scope and with its broad historical perspective, it makes a strong case for why British history still matters. It will be central for anyone interested in understanding how modernity came about.” Frank TrenTMann, author of Free Trade Nation: Consumption, Commerce, and Civil Society in Modern Britain In this wide-ranging volume, leading scholars across several disciplines—history, literature, sociology, and cultural studies—investigate the nature of liberalism and modernity in imperial Britain since the eighteenth century. They show how Britain’s liberal version of modernity (of capitalism, democracy, and imperialism) was the product of a peculiar set of historical cir- cumstances that continues to haunt our neoliberal present. SIMon Gunn is a professor of urban history at the University of Leicester. JaMeS Vernon is a professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. ConTrIBuTorS: Peter Bailey, Tony Bennett, Tom Crook, James Epstein, Simon Gunn, Catherine Hall, Patrick Joyce, Jon Lawrence, Tom Osborne, Chris Otter, Mary Poovey, Gavin Rand, John Seed, James Vernon, David Vincent Berkeley Series in British Studies, 1 Cover photo: Construction of the Royal Albert bridge, 1858 (Wikimedia Commons, source unknown). The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain The Berkeley Series in British Studies Mark Bevir and James Vernon, University of California, Berkeley, Editors 1. The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain, edited by Simon Gunn and James Vernon The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain Edited by Simon Gunn and James Vernon Global, Area, and International Archive University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London The Global, Area, and International Archive (GAIA) is an initiative of the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the University of California Press, the California Digital Library, and international research programs across the University of California system. University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2011 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Manufactured in the United States of America 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z 39.48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper). To Patrick Joyce, friend, mentor, historian Contents Acknowledgments ix Foreword, by Patrick Joyce xi 1. Introduction: What Was Liberal Modernity and Why Was It Peculiar in Imperial Britain? 1 Simon Gunn and James Vernon 2. Macaulay: A Liberal Historian? 19 Catherine Hall 3. Freedom Rules/Colonial Fractures: Bringing “Free” Labor to Trinidad in the Age of Revolution 37 James Epstein 4. “Free Labour = Latent Pauperism”: Marx, Mayhew, and the “Reserve Army of Labour” in Mid-Nineteenth- Century London 54 John Seed 5. Secrecy and Liberal Modernity in Victorian and Edwardian England 72 Tom Crook 6. Was There a Liberal Historicism? 91 Thomas Osborne 7. Habit, Instinct, Survivals: Repetition, History, Biopower 102 Tony Bennett 8. Entertainmentality! Liberalizing Modern Pleasure in the Victorian Leisure Industry 119 Peter Bailey 9. Same Difference? Liberalism, Modernity, and Governance in the Indian Empire 134 Gavin Rand 10. Paternalism, Class, and the British Path to Modernity 147 Jon Lawrence 11. Government and the Management of Information, 1844–2009 165 David Vincent 12. Liberty and Ecology: Resources, Markets, and the British Contribution to the Global Environmental Crisis 182 Chris Otter 13. Stories We Tell about Liberal Markets: The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Great-Men Narratives of Change 199 Mary Poovey Notes 213 Contributors 261 Index 265 Acknowledgments This volume had its origins in the conference “Liberal Subjects: The Politics of Social and Cultural History since the 1970s,” held at the University of Manchester in March 2008 to honor Patrick Joyce on the occasion of his retirement. As the dedication to this book indicates, we both owe Patrick a good deal. As an adviser he was a constant catalyst for thought and con- versation, and his scholarship continues to inform our work as well as that of many others far beyond the sometimes parochial world of British social and cultural history. We would like to thank all those who participated in the conference, especially Harry Cocks, Francis Dodsworth, Anindita Ghosh, Rosaleen Joyce, Frank Mort, Frank O’Gorman, Carolyn Steedman, and William Sewell. Penny Summerfi eld and Mike Savage were instrumental in ensur- ing that the conference was held in Manchester. The event was funded by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) and the School of Arts, Cultures, and Humanities at the University of Manchester, as well as the British Academy and the Center for British Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. We are very grateful for the generous support of all these organizations. This volume bears only a passing resem- blance to the original conference, and we are indebted to all the contribu- tors for their willingness to revise and reframe their essays, sometimes under a rather heavy editorial hand. We are enormously grateful to the two readers for the Press (one revealed herself to be Jordanna Bailkin), who provided such incisive and trenchant comments that we restructured the collection and engaged in another round of revisions. Thanks to Penny Ismay for the index. James Vernon thanks the participants of his graduate classes for their help thinking through the nature of modernity in imperial Britain. I ix x / Acknowledgments am honored to work with such talented people. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation generously funded a collaborative program between UC Berkeley’s Center for British Studies and the University of Chicago and Yale University reexamining Britain’s transition to modernity in which Steven Pincus has proved a fi ne interlocutor. Last, but by no means least, my thanks to Ros, Jack, Mischa, and young Alf—the next one is for you. Simon Gunn wishes to thank colleagues and graduate students at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester—a good place to think about the micro-dimensions of liberal modernity, from street numbering to water closets. At Leicester I have benefi ted especially from conversa- tions with Robert Colls and Prashant Kidambi. My biggest debt, though, is to Gabriele Griffi n, not least for her periodic reminders that there is always another way of seeing things. S. G. and J. V. Foreword How shall the history of Britain be written? Obviously, there are many answers to this question. This book proposes two, in the shape of the ideas of liberalism and modernity. These answers are powerful ones, for both concepts are indeed central to an understanding of Britain. As the editors argue in their introduction, these concepts are central because they pose the most searching questions, both about how historians have understood the course of British history in the past and how they have come to view it now, over the past three or four decades. Looking back over the past couple of generations of British experience and how historians have responded, the changes have been considerable. In the 1960s and into the 1970s Britain was seen as the exemplary case of modernity. It was in Britain, so it was held, that the conditions of a liberal economy and polity were historically most developed, and alongside them industrialization and urbanism. Since then much has happened to alter this view. Economic globaliza- tion, European integration, and the information revolution have been among the forces for change. These changes have in turn led to changes in the nature of the nation-state, apparent in a lessening of its power and a questioning of what it now means to be a member of a nation-state. In turn, therefore, comes the question, what does it mean to write “British history” now? The chapters that follow offer a fascinating, original, and important answer to this question. In their various ways the contributors connect to the different intellectual perspectives that have resulted from the great social, economic, and political changes that have occurred. The intellectual agenda that follows embraces postcolonial and post-Foucault governmentality perspectives, for instance, and a new awakening of inter- est in the nature of materiality in relation to power. Along with this, the introduction offers a rigorous analysis of the central terms of the book, xi xii / Patrick Joyce liberal and modernity, both of which, but especially the latter, are notori- ously fl uid and varied.