DOCSLIB.ORG

Download Download

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download Download Global histories a student journal From Imperial Science to Post-Patriotism: The Polemics and Ethics of British Imperial History Emma Gattey DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/GHSJ.2021.357 Source: Global Histories, Vol. 6, No. 2 (January 2021), pp. 90-101. ISSN: 2366-780X Copyright © 2021 Emma Gattey License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Publisher information: ‘Global Histories: A Student Journal’ is an open-access bi-annual journal founded in 2015 by students of the M.A. program Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. ‘Global Histories’ is published by an editorial board of Global History students in association with the Freie Universität Berlin. Freie Universität Berlin Global Histories: A Student Journal Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut Koserstraße 20 14195 Berlin Contact information: For more information, please consult our website www.globalhistories.com or contact the editor at: [email protected]. From Imperial Science to Post-Patriotism: The Polemics and Ethics of British Imperial History by EMMA GATTEY 90 Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2020 Emma Gattey | From Imperial Science to Post-Patriotism 91 VI - 2 - 2020 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR History at the University of Oxford. Emma Gattey is a first-year PhD student in History at on Māori activist-intellectuals and their participation in the University of Cambridge. Her current work focuses the University of Cambridge. century. She is a writer and literary critic from Aotearoa century. transnational anticolonial networks in the late twentieth transnational anticolonial networks New Zealand, a former barrister, and has studied law and New Zealand, a former barrister, history at the University of Otago, and Global and Imperial history at the University of Otago, Global Histories: a student journal ABSTRACT Through a brief intellectual biography of British imperial history, upon recent academic and expands this article examines of history. demands for a renovated ‘professional ethics’ new developments in global environmental It also tracks how global and imperial historians and asks historiography, can best acquit themselves of their professional and ethical The ideological operation responsibilities in the Anthropocene. of imperial history was manifest in the racist self-justification of imperialism and its associated policies of dispossession, and assimilation, as disseminated genocide, exploitation, through British imperial history taught at Oxbridge in the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. But it is also present, if less obvious, in the transnational histories of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which tend to ignore climate change. The latter strand of imperial history thus functions to disguise or vindicate the political and economic interests of the Global North in failing to mitigate and adapt to further climate change, and the resulting crises which will be disproportionately borne by the states and citizens of the Global South. This article argues that in order to identify the harms of empire—both epistemic and physical, past and ongoing—imperial history must address the role of empire-building in the origins and trajectory of the climate crisis. m s i t From its inception in the work. However, these historians’ o i r t late nineteenth century, the field of entreaties are marked by their a P - t British imperial history was intended own positionality, one which s o P to provide ideological and practical focuses on ideological and political o t support for empire. Although this battlegrounds between polities and e c n sub-discipline has evolved through empires, at the expense of a truly e i c S multiple theoretical ‘turns’ in recent global focus on the most pressing l a i r decades, inevitably affected by the planetary conjuncture of our time: e p methodological developments in the climate crisis, and its enduring m I m global history, imperial history is connections with empire. This o r F still used to naturalise global power essay summarises these debates, | y structures as well as geopolitical and which have long tended to sidestep e t t a economic imparities. It is also used environmental and climatic concerns, G a to criticize these same hierarchies, before surveying recent global m m but as several global and imperial histories which have closely analysed E historians have remarked, there are the interconnections between serious ethical challenges associated empire and climate change. Paying with tethering history to policy, and closer attention to the dialectics of to public understandings of the past. world-ecology,2 these new works of To meet these challenges, Richard scholarship signal a tipping point in Drayton and Dane Kennedy have global environmental historiography. urged academics to adopt a ‘post- Taking Drayton and Kennedy’s patriotic’, self-reflective imperial demands for a ‘professional ethics’ history, one which transcends of history as a springboard, this ideology.1 Well-known scholars essay argues that historians must within the burgeoning sub-discipline expand our professional ethical of global and imperial history, and agenda to a fully global, or planetary, with extensive publications on scale. This essay recognises the the history of science, race, and ‘special responsibilities’ of global and British imperialism, both Drayton imperial historians to spur a post- and Kennedy have cast a keen imperial ‘global studies’ movement.3 methodological eye towards global It highlights our related obligations history’s longevity, morality and to be self-reflexive about our impact. This is no doubt meaningful practices and positionality, and to expose presentist, ideological claims about the past.4 But it also takes 1 Richard Drayton, “Where Does the World these arguments further, in order to Historian Write From? Objectivity, Moral Conscience and the Past and Present of Imperialism,” Journal of Contemporary History 46, no. 3 (July 2011): 684, https:// 2 See Jason W. Moore, Capitalism in www.jstor.org/stable/41305352; Dane the Web of Life: Ecology and the Kennedy, “The Imperial History Wars,” Accumulation of Capital (London: Verso, Journal of British Studies 54 (January 2015). 2015): 5–22, https://doi.org/10.1017/ 3 Drayton, “Human Future,” 158, 166-9. jbr.2014.166. 4 Kennedy, “Imperial History Wars,” 5-6, 22. 92 Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2020 E m augment both the discipline itself and associated with imperialism during m a 9 G the public response to anthropogenic the interwar period, imperial history, a t t e climate change. In short, to identify too, was a crucial weapon in the y | 10 the harms of empire, imperial history pedagogical arsenal of empire. F r o must address the role of empire- From the late twentieth century, in m I building in the origins and trajectory the wake of postcolonial studies, m p e of the climate crisis. The twenty-first deconstructionism and structuralism, r i a l century ‘professional ethics’ of history anticolonial critiques have spread S c i demands nothing less. to encompass anthropology and e n c ethnography. Both disciplines have e t o grappled with issues of appropriation, P o s AN ‘IMPERIAL SCIENCE’? decolonisation and representation, t - P a often being equated with colonial t r i 11 o Assuming ‘specifically ideology. Imperial history, however, t i s imperial roles’ by training colonial has not faced the same degree of m administrators in both theory and external critique and disciplinary praxis, select British universities soul-searching. Since each of these became ‘stakeholders in Empire’ disciplines had such a formative and an integral part of ‘the position in shaping racist knowledge, apparatus of Britain’s imperial their practitioners bear a special system’.5 Within this apparatus, responsibility to acknowledge imperial history served as both past wrongs and to reorient and ideological justification for empire decolonise methodologies for the and colonization, and as an integral present and future.12 part in the training programme Against this evolving for colonial administrators.6 The background of intra-disciplinary twentieth-century consolidation politics, several leading historians of colonial rule in Britain’s newer have stepped into the breach. colonies in Africa led to, amongst Drayton has repeatedly traced the other things, the inauguration of intellectual genealogy of British Colonial Service training at Oxford imperial history as a ‘patriotic and Cambridge in 1926.7 Both universities developed particular expertise in the emergent subfield of 9 Stockwell, British End, 27. 10 8 Dane Kennedy, “Imperial History and imperial and Commonwealth history. Post-Colonial Theory,” The Journal of Although anthropology became Imperial and Commonwealth History 24, the social science most intimately no. 3 (September 1996): 345, https://doi. org/10.1080/03086539608582983. 11 Nicholas Thomas, The Return of Curiosity: What Museums are Good for in the 5 Sarah E. Stockwell, The British End of the Twenty-first Century (London: Reaktion British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge Books, 2016), 12, 20. University Press, 2018), 7-8, 23. 12 See Gurminder K Bhambra, Dalia 6 Stockwell, British End, 26-7. Gebrial and Kerem Nişancioğlu (eds.), 7 Stockwell, British End, 23. Decolonising the University (London: Pluto 8 Stockwell, British End, 27, 30. Press, 2018). Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2020 93 m s 17 i t enterprise’ which inflicts both British polity.’ The scholarship of Sir o i r t epistemic and physical violence by Reginald Coupland, Beit Professor of a P - t obscuring the role of coercion and Colonial History at Oxford (1920-1948), s o 13 P violence in the expansion of empire. epitomises the ideological defence of o t Writing most recently as Rhodes empire. Coupland spoke and wrote of e c n Professor of Imperial History at King’s the British Empire as an honourable e i c S College London, Drayton’s self- trustee: a benevolent force in the l a i r described polemics are animated by world, operating according to ‘the e 18 p a sense of professional responsibility doctrine of trusteeship’.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Hollsten, Laura. "Controlling Nature and Transforming Landscapes in the Early Modern Caribbean." Global Environment 1 (2008): 80–113
    Full citation: Hollsten, Laura. "Controlling Nature and Transforming Landscapes in the Early Modern Caribbean." Global Environment 1 (2008): 80–113. http://www.environmentandsociety.org/node/4218. First published: http://www.globalenvironment.it. Rights: All rights reserved. Made available on the Environment & Society Portal for nonprofit educational purposes only, courtesy of Gabriella Corona, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche / National Research Council of Italy (CNR), and XL edizioni s.a.s. Controlling Nature and Transforming Landscapes in the Early Modern Caribbean Laura Hollsten he Early Modern Caribbean is a highly in- teresting area for the global as well as the environmental historian.1 h e Caribbean islands were some of the most important colonies in the seventeenth century and part of the international trade network as one of the cornerstones of the so-called T “triangular trade” between Europe, Africa and the Americas. h e growth of markets and buying power in Europe stimulated investments in sugar plan- tations. Westbound European ships, on their way to what they ini- tially thought of as India, i rst arrived here bringing with them peo- ple, animals, diseases, arms and the beginnings of a new culture. h e Caribbean has sometimes been characterised as a place where people, plants and animals were acclimatised before they entered the mainland of America. Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of a contact zone, designating an area of contact between dif erent peoples in a colonial situation, can be applied to contacts between biotypes, animals and plants, as well as humans.2 h e seventeenth-century Caribbean was a contact zone for dif erent peoples, as well as animals and plants.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitae (Updated August 1, 2021)
    DAVID A. BELL SIDNEY AND RUTH LAPIDUS PROFESSOR IN THE ERA OF NORTH ATLANTIC REVOLUTIONS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Curriculum Vitae (updated August 1, 2021) Department of History Phone: (609) 258-4159 129 Dickinson Hall [email protected] Princeton University www.davidavrombell.com Princeton, NJ 08544-1017 @DavidAvromBell EMPLOYMENT Princeton University, Director, Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies (2020-24). Princeton University, Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions, Department of History (2010- ). Associated appointment in the Department of French and Italian. Johns Hopkins University, Dean of Faculty, School of Arts & Sciences (2007-10). Responsibilities included: Oversight of faculty hiring, promotion, and other employment matters; initiatives related to faculty development, and to teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences; chairing a university-wide working group for the Johns Hopkins 2008 Strategic Plan. Johns Hopkins University, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities (2005-10). Principal appointment in Department of History, with joint appointment in German and Romance Languages and Literatures. Johns Hopkins University. Professor of History (2000-5). Johns Hopkins University. Associate Professor of History (1996-2000). Yale University. Assistant Professor of History (1991-96). Yale University. Lecturer in History (1990-91). The New Republic (Washington, DC). Magazine reporter (1984-85). VISITING POSITIONS École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Visiting Professor (June, 2018) Tokyo University, Visiting Fellow (June, 2017). École Normale Supérieure (Paris), Visiting Professor (March, 2005). David A. Bell, page 1 EDUCATION Princeton University. Ph.D. in History, 1991. Thesis advisor: Prof. Robert Darnton. Thesis title: "Lawyers and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Paris (1700-1790)." Princeton University.
    [Show full text]
  • Nationalism's Entangled Histories
    With the support of the Fondation Pierre du Bois pour l'histoire du temps présent Pierre du Bois Annual Conference 2020 POLITICAL PROTEUS: NATIONALISM’S ENTANGLED HISTORIES Thursday 1 October 2020 | Friday 2 October 2020 > Maison de la paix, chemin Eugène-Rigot 2, 1202 Geneva Biographies and capitalism. She earned her PhD in History from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2018. She has published on US-EU-Russia trade, on trans-Atlantic economic relations in the postwar period, and on the political influence of multinational corporations. Her current book project investigates the relationship of business to the process of European integration. Grace Ballor’s research has been supported by the European CEMIL AYDIN Union Studies Association, the Business History Conference, the The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, the Center for Economic Cemil Aydin is Professor of Global History at the University of History, and several research centers across the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research concerns both California. modern Middle Eastern history and modern Asian history, with an emphasis on the international and intellectual histories of the Ottoman and Japanese Empires. His previous research has focused on historical processes that shape transnational racial and civilisational identities, such as Muslim, Asian, African. He is the author of The Idea of the Muslim World (2017) and The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought (2007). SEBASTIAN CONRAD Freie Universität Berlin Sebastian Conrad is Professor of History at the Freie Universität Berlin.
    [Show full text]
  • The Futures of Global History
    Richard Drayton and David Motadel Discussion: the futures of global history Article (Accepted version) (Refereed) Original citation: Drayton, Richard and Motadel, David (2018) Discussion: the futures of global history. Journal of Global History, 13 (1). pp. 1-21. ISSN 1740-0228 DOI: 10.1017/S1740022817000262 © 2018 Cambridge University Press This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/86797/ Available in LSE Research Online: February 2018 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. The Futures of Global History Richard Drayton and David Motadel ‘If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are citizen of nowhere’, declared Theresa May in autumn 2016 to the Tory party conference, questioning the patriotism of those who still dared to question Brexit. Within a month, ‘Make America Great Again’ triumphed in the polls in the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • THE GRADUATE CENTER Ph.D. PROGRAM in HISTORY
    THE GRADUATE CENTER Ph.D. PROGRAM IN HISTORY GLOBALIZING THE ENLIGHTENMENT Hist 72800 MALS 70600 Professor Helena Rosenblatt Tuesdays, 4:15-6:15 [email protected] Course Description: The Eighteenth Century European Enlightenment is widely seen as a transformative moment in Western culture, one which gave birth to many of our most cherished ideals. We are often told, for example, that it is to the Enlightenment that we owe our modern notions of human rights, representative government, and liberal democracy. However, the recent “global turn” in scholarship has led historians to ask some new and often unsettling questions. How, for example, did eighteenth-century European thinkers perceive the world beyond their own borders? How did they get their information and to what purposes was that information put? Did regions outside of Europe experience an Enlightenment too? With the help of both primary and secondary sources, we will ask how adopting a “global” perspective on the Enlightenment might change our view of it. Is it even correct to call the Enlightenment European? Learning Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to • Read texts more critically and effectively • Identify and summarize ideas in texts in an articulate and persuasive manner, verbally and in writing • Display a grasp of the key methodological questions involved in “globalizing” the Enlightenment • Display a grasp of some the key concepts that can be used to illustrate the global perspective of European eighteenth century thinkers. Requirements: • Regular class participation demonstrating careful reading of all assigned texts: 30% • 2-4 sentence summaries of the argument(s) of each of the weekly readings.
    [Show full text]
  • “Bad Business” of Obeah: Power, Authority, and the Politics of Slave Culture in the British Caribbean
    The “Bad Business” of Obeah: Power, Authority, and the Politics of Slave Culture in the British Caribbean Randy M. Browne HEN the drivers on Op Hoop van Beter, a riverside coffee plantation in Berbice (in present-day Guyana), saw Madalon’s Wbloodied, bruised body early one morning in August 1821, they knew that if knowledge about what had happened spread, their own lives might be in danger (Figure I). Yet they were confident that others on the plantation of more than 170 slaves shared their interest in keeping the cause of the enslaved woman’s death a secret. As the workday began, the driv- ers ordered a small group of men to hide the body and then told manager J. Helmers that Madalon had run away. While the manager initiated the search for Madalon, news of her disappearance spread. Within hours a note had reached the nearby estate where her husband lived. He traveled to Madalon’s plantation to try to find out what had happened. But no one would tell him what they knew. Indeed, for more than a month the people of Op Hoop van Beter kept their secrets. Eventually, however, militia officer and planter William Sterk caught wind of a rumor that Madalon had been killed during a clandestine obeah ritual. Tracing the rumor to its source led Sterk to a slave named Vigilant, who reported that “Madalon was killed by the directions of a negro, named Willem . on an occasion of his having danced the Mousckie dance,” an illegal ritual also known as the Minje Mama or Water Mama dance.1 Randy M.
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Argument and Practice Bibliography for Lectures 2019-20
    HISTORICAL ARGUMENT AND PRACTICE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR LECTURES 2019-20 Useful Websites http://www.besthistorysites.net http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/index.html http://www.jstor.org [e-journal articles] http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/ejournals_list/ [all e-journals can be accessed from here] http://www.historyandpolicy.org General Reading Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983) R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946) Donald R. Kelley, Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998) Donald R. Kelley, Fortunes of History: Historical Inquiry from Herder to Huizinga (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003) R. J. Evans, In Defence of History (2nd edn., London, 2001). E. H. Carr, What is History? (40th anniversary edn., London, 2001). Forum on Transnational History, American Historical Review, December 2006, pp1443-164. G.R. Elton, The Practice of History (2nd edn., Oxford, 2002). K. Jenkins, Rethinking History (London, 1991). C. Geertz, Local Knowledge (New York, 1983) M. Collis and S. Lukes, eds., Rationality and Relativism (London, 1982) D. Papineau, For Science in the Social Sciences (London, 1978) U. Rublack ed., A Concise Companion to History (Oxford, 2011) Q.R.D. Skinner, Visions of Politics Vol. 1: Regarding Method (Cambridge, 2002) David Cannadine, What is History Now, ed. (Basingstoke, 2000). -----------------------INTRODUCTION TO HISTORIOGRAPHY---------------------- Thu. 10 Oct. Who does history? Prof John Arnold J. H. Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction (2000), particularly chapters 2 and 3 S. Berger, H. Feldner & K. Passmore, eds, Writing History: Theory & Practice (2003) P.
    [Show full text]
  • “What Is This T'ing T'en About Caribbean Feminisms?”: Feminism in the Anglophone Caribbean, Circa 1980-2000
    Ellie McDonald: “What is this t’ing t’en about Caribbean Feminisms?”: Feminism in the Anglophone Caribbean, circa 1980-2000 “What is this t’ing t’en about Caribbean Feminisms?”: Feminism in the Anglophone Caribbean, circa 1980-2000 Ellie McDonald Outreach and Community, Anti-Slavery International London, UK 45 http://journals.sta.uwi.edu/crgs/ UWI IGDS CRGS Issue 10 ISSN 1995-1108 Abstract This paper explores the complex history of Caribbean feminist activism in the late twentieth-century, based on interviews with Peggy Antrobus of Barbados, Andaiye and Alissa Trotz of Guyana and Patricia Mohammed of Trinidad. It attempts to create a hitherto absent archive of these figures while interpreting their ideological and political positions. It is divided into three sections. The first explores the individual trajectories that gave these women a political consciousness. The second explores the regional and global linkages of Caribbean women’s/feminist activism. The third discusses the long crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, including the decline of ‘Left’ projects and the impact of growth-oriented economic policies, and their role in engendering a Caribbean feminism which was not subordinated to larger nationalist or revolutionary projects. The paper ends by comparing how these persons have positioned themselves and reflect on the contemporary feminist movement. Keywords: feminism, Caribbean women, intersectionality, gender and development, oral history Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank Dr Richard Drayton for his guidance in helping me to develop my original dissertation thesis on which this paper is based. I am indebted to Peggy Antrobus, Patricia Mohammed, Andaiye and Alissa Trotz for allowing me to interview them and to Merle Collins for her written responses.
    [Show full text]
  • 2005 Annual Report.Pdf
    jesus college • cambridge one hundred and first annual report 2005 jesus college • cambridge one hundred and first annual report 2005 photo: frances willmoth Above, two men paddling in a boat; below, Jonah emerges from the fish’s mouth and clutches a tree From July to December this year the Fitzwilliam Museum is showing a most magnificent exhibition of illuminated manuscripts, many of which are from college collections. Jesus was not asked to lend anything for this exhibition – ‘as most of our manuscripts are of the working kind and not elaborately decorated’. Some of the college manuscripts, however, do have illuminations. A 13th century Holy Bible in the college’s collection (Q.A.11: no. 11 in M. R. James’ 1895 catalogue) not only has beautiful writing but ‘historiated initials of more than usual interest’. So that readers can see something of what the Fitzwilliam has missed, this year’s Annual Report carries a number of illustrations taken from that Bible. COPYRIGHT This publication is protected by international copyright law. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission of the copyright holders, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. contents Message from the Master 5 The College Year 2004–5 7 College News 7 Domestic Bursar’s Notes 13 The Old Library and College Archives 15 Chapel 17 Chapel Music 19 Art 20 Sculpture in the Close 21 Development Office 24 Development Director’s Report 24 Society of St Radegund 24 Bequests 24 Report of Events 24 Calendar of Events 2005–6 30 M.A.
    [Show full text]
  • Newsletter: Lent 2002
    CENTRE FOR HISTORY AND ECONOMICS Newsletter: Lent 2002 History and Economics Seminar 13 February Catherine Merridale (Bristol University) Redesigning History in Contemporary Russia 27 February Sugata Bose (Harvard University) Poet as Pilgrim: Rabindranath Tagore's Discovery of the Indian Ocean 6 March Richard Drayton (Corpus Christi, Cambridge) Bordeaux and the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century The seminars are held on Wednesdays at 5.00pm in the Wine Room, King’s College Recent Centre-related books A.G. Hopkins (ed) Globalization in World History (Pimlico, January 2002) Ananya Kabir Paradise, Death and Doomsday in Anglo-Saxon Literature (CUP, December 2001) Roberto Romani National Character and Public Spirit in Britain and France, 1750-1914 (CUP, December 2001) Gloria Vivenza Adam Smith and the Classics. The Classical Heritage in Adam Smith’s Thought (OUP, November 2001) Teas How to contact us We will be meeting in the Centre at 3D King’s Parade The administrative offices of the Centre for History and for tea and coffee on all non-seminar Wednesdays Economics are situated at 3 King’s Parade. The postal during full term, between 4 and 5 pm. Please note that address is King’s College, Cambridge CB2 1ST; on Wednesdays prior to seminars, tea will be held in the web address is www.kings.cam.ac.uk/histecon/ the Wine Room, King’s College. Staff can be contacted by phone on 01223 331197/ Friends and associates are welcome. 331120, by fax on 01223 331198, or by email at [email protected] or [email protected]. CENTRE FOR HISTORY AND ECONOMICS Centre News · Mike Finn, a prize research grant student at the Centre this academic year, won the Times Higher Social Sciences/ Humanities Writing Prize for an essay on the role of the academic in society.
    [Show full text]
  • Discussion: the Futures of Global History
    Journal of Global History (2018), 13, pp. 1–21 © Cambridge University Press 2018 doi:10.1017/S1740022817000262 Discussion: the futures of global history Richard Drayton1 and David Motadel2 1Department of History, King’s College London, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK E-mail: [email protected] 2Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Global history has come under attack. It is charged with neglecting national history and the ‘small spaces’ of the past, with being an elite globalist project made irrelevant by the anti-globalist politics of our age, with focusing exclusively on mobile people and things, and with becoming dangerously hegemonic. This article demonstrates that global history is intertwined with the histories of the nation and the local, individuals, outsiders, and subalterns, and small and isolated places. More- over, global history has directly addressed immobility and resistances to flow, and remains rela- tively weak in the discipline, versus the persistent dominance everywhere of national history. The article offers a new short history of the rise of the contemporary idiom of global history, and a pro- spect for a future in which scholars may find, through collaboration, alternatives to the European weights and measures of the past, and to the dominance of Anglophone historians. It argues that we should no more reverse the ‘global turn’ than we should return history’sgazeonly to propertied white men. Rather than a retreat from global history, we need it more than ever to fight against myths of imperial and national pasts, which often underpin nationalist populisms.
    [Show full text]
  • Whose Constitution? Law, Justice and History in the Caribbean of Government, the Constitution As Political Order
    I shall explore the conjecture that our Independence constitutions are not our own. But I shall go beyond the question of those bodies of basic law to consider the larger question of the structures Whose Constitution? Law, Justice and History in the Caribbean of government, the constitution as political order. And beyond that, by ‘constitution’, I reach also to what underpins law and politics: how we live together, and how we imagine ourselves living together, here, on these rocks, in this sea. Sixth Distinguished Jurist Lecture 2016 by Professor Richard Drayton PhD FRHistS Whose Constitution? Law, Justice and History in the Caribbean Whose Constitution? Law, Justice and History in the Caribbean Judicial Education Institute of Trinidad and Tobago Sixth Distinguished Jurist Lecture 2016 By Professor Richard Drayton PhD FRHistS © Judicial Education Institute of Trinidad and Tobago 2016 All rights reserved. Except for use in review, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, any information storage or retrieval system, or on the internet, without permission in writing from the publishers. Produced for the JEITT by: www.pariapublishing.com Typeset in Arno Pro by Paria Publishing Company Limited and printed by The Office Authority Limited ISBN (e-book) 978-976-8255-37-2 available on http://www.ttlawcourts.org/jeibooks/ ISBN (hardcover) 978-976-8255-36-5 ••• Also in the Distinguished Jurist Lecture series: Creating a Regional Jurisprudence First Distinguished Jurist Lecture 2011 by Sir Shridath Ramphal, QC, OCC The Role of the Court of Appeal in Developing and Preserving An Independent and Just Society Second Distinguished Jurist Lecture 2012 by The Hon.
    [Show full text]