Antoinette M. Burton. After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. 384 S. $79.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-3106-3; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-3142-1.
Reviewed by Juanita L. De Barros (Department of History, McMaster University)
Published on H-Albion (June, 2005)
New Approaches to Imperial Studies
The last several decades have seen the publication of a great many books and articles exploring the significance of the empire in the British imperial world, from the perspective of the colonies themselves and the imperial center. Over the course of several books--Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915 (1994), At the Heart of Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain (1998), and Dwelling in the Archive: Women, Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India (2000)--Antoinette Burton has contributed to this "imperial turn," considering the production of historical knowledge and the interrelationship between colonial Southeast Asia and nineteenth- and twentieth-century British life and ideas. In her edited collection of essays, After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation, she continues her examination of these themes, but in a much wider sphere. The essays in this strong collection are wide-ranging, interrogating the meaning and impact of empire from a variety of disciplinary, national, and thematic perspectives and, in the process, questioning the nature of the nation itself.
In the introduction, Burton defines the "imperial turn" as the growing "attention to the impact of histories of imperialism on metropolitan societies." She argues that this scholarship has demonstrated that the empire was not "out there" but was instead a "fundamental and constitutive part of English culture and national identity at home" (pp. 2-3). In much of this "new imperial history," however, the nation tends to "remain the fixed referent" (p. 5), rather than being acknowledged as "precarious, unmoored, and, in the end, finally unrealizable" (pp. 6-7). The essays in this collection contribute to this project, exploring the extent to which historians can "displac[e] the nation from centre stage" (p. 8). They do so from several national/imperial perspectives, addressing not only topics in the fields of British and British imperial studies, but including also subjects emerging from the imperial experiences of France, Spain, and Germany. This breadth is one of the strengths of this collection and serves, as Burton notes, to move "the discussion of empire, nation, and colony beyond the boundaries of British imperial history and scholarship" (p. 15). The fascinating essays by Lora Wildenthal ("Notes on a History of 'Imperial Turns' in Modern Germany"), Gary Wilder ("Unthinking French History"), and Christopher Schmidt-Nowara ("After 'Spain': A Dialogue with Josep M. Fradera on Spanish Colonial Historiography") chart the influence of empire on the histories of Germany, France, and Spain. For these scholars, the nation is highly heterogeneous and complex. Schmidt-Nowara's conversation with Josep M. Fradera, for example, examines the place of local Spanish histories in Spanish and Spanish imperial history and demonstrates the absence of a single, homogenous "Spain."
The volume also highlights the new kinds of research undertaken by scholars influenced by the "imperial turn" in their work on Britain itself. Written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, these essays consider the impact of the empire on various literary, official, and popular texts, and print culture generally. They include those produced by such diverse figures as Samuel Johnson, George Lamming, Lord Milner, and Mohandas Gandhi, as well as popular works such as the catalogues and periodical and newspaper stories produced to describe and explain the displays of the 1851 Great Exhibition for the British public. These essays emphasize the multiple strands of influence (from different colonies and Britain itself) brought to bear on the production and reception of such texts and their contribution to print culture and the public sphere.
The scholars also reflect on the impact of the new imperialism and thinking about the nation on a variety of more immediate, "practical" matters: textbooks, the job market, course development, interaction with students, and the "problematic" nature of colonial archives. Most of the contributors to this collection are based at universities in the United States, and this fact colors their take on teaching British studies. They are, not surprisingly, sensitive to the challenge of teaching this subject in the U.S. context. Susan Pennybacker, for example, in "Rethinking British Studies: Is There Life after Empire?" concludes that the "imaginary Britain is a Britain thus interpreted through the mediating lens of American racial categories" (p. 38). In a very honest and thoughtful piece, Heather Streets, in "Empire and 'the Nation': Institutional Practice, Pedagogy, and Nation in the Classroom," explores some of the very practical challenges historians face in trying to incorporate new methodologies and discoveries into university teaching. Specifically, she describes her experiences teaching the history of empire to U.S. students and the manner with which "imperial history can potentially destabilize powerful national imaginaries of white, middle-class America," especially "assumptions about the superiority of Western culture and technology" (p. 57).
Street's essay emphasizes one of the themes of After the Imperial Turn, the often politically charged nature of this scholarship. She describes the division of the students in her U.S. university course on empire into two opposing (and racially distinct) blocs and the hostility with which some of her white students responded to course readings and discussions. Her observations are echoed in other pieces in the collection, including Burton's introduction. Burton notes that recent findings identifying the influence of the empire on Britain itself have generated considerable controversy and encountered "opposition so vociferous that it would be easy to imagine that they pose some kind of threat to national security" (p. 3). This opposition, she argues, demonstrates that "history writing is one terrain upon which political battles are fought out" (p. 4).
It is a clich of book reviewing to observe that no book can do everything, and given the strength of this collection, one feels a little petty to quibble at a few (perhaps inevitable) gaps. In particular, one wonders at the absence of essays on the meaning and impact of empire from a Portuguese and Dutch perspective. Given the early and lengthy imperial experiences of these nations and their ongoing struggles to deal with some of the legacies of empire, the inclusion of essays addressing aspects of this history would have been welcome and extremely useful. Overall, however, scholars interested in imperial studies will find After the Imperial Turn a useful and thought-provoking collection.
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Citation:
Juanita L. De Barros. Review of Burton, Antoinette M., After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation.
H-Albion, H-Net Reviews.
June, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10688
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