Soldiers and Settlers in Africa, 1850-1918

Soldiers and Settlers in Africa, 1850-1918 PDF Author: Stephen Miller
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047444795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays in this volume concentrate on imperial conflict. Until recently, most historians of empire have concerned themselves with economic issues. More recently, scholarship has turned to social and cultural aspects of Empire. The role of the military, however, continues to be largely ignored. Historians have traditionally viewed the military as an arm of the civil power, an institution which did not create policy but faithfully obeyed the directives given to it. These essays show that indeed the military thought for itself: its officers made policy, introduced new strategies and tactics, and utilized the services of local settlers and indigenes to pursue the interests of empire, and the rank and file informed ideas in Great Britain concerning Africa and Africans. Contributors are Edward M. Spiers, Ian F.W. Beckett, Bill Nasson, John Laband, Paul Thompson, Fransjohan Pretorius, Tim Stapleton, Ian van der Waag, James Thomas, Jeffrey Meriwether, and Bruce Vandervort.

Soldiers and Settlers in Africa, 1850-1918

Soldiers and Settlers in Africa, 1850-1918 PDF Author: Stephen Miller
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047444795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays in this volume concentrate on imperial conflict. Until recently, most historians of empire have concerned themselves with economic issues. More recently, scholarship has turned to social and cultural aspects of Empire. The role of the military, however, continues to be largely ignored. Historians have traditionally viewed the military as an arm of the civil power, an institution which did not create policy but faithfully obeyed the directives given to it. These essays show that indeed the military thought for itself: its officers made policy, introduced new strategies and tactics, and utilized the services of local settlers and indigenes to pursue the interests of empire, and the rank and file informed ideas in Great Britain concerning Africa and Africans. Contributors are Edward M. Spiers, Ian F.W. Beckett, Bill Nasson, John Laband, Paul Thompson, Fransjohan Pretorius, Tim Stapleton, Ian van der Waag, James Thomas, Jeffrey Meriwether, and Bruce Vandervort.

Volunteers on the Veld

Volunteers on the Veld PDF Author: Stephen M. Miller
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806138640
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book spotlights Britain's “citizen army” to show who these volunteers were, why they enlisted, how they were trained—and how they quickly became disillusioned when they found themselves committed not to the supposed glories of conventional battle but instead to a prolonged guerrilla war.

Unfit for heroes

Unfit for heroes PDF Author: Kent Fedorowich
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526123568
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
Research on soldier settlement has to be set within the wider history of emigration and immigration. This book examines two parallel but complementary themes: the settlement of British soldiers in the overseas or 'white' dominions, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, between 1915 and 1930. One must place soldier settlement within the larger context of imperial migration prior to 1914 in order to elicit the changes in attitude and policy which occurred after the armistice. The book discusses the changes to Anglo-dominion relations that were consequent upon the incorporation of British ex-service personnel into several overseas soldier settlement programmes, and unravels the responses of the dominion governments to such programmes. For instance, Canadians and Australians complained about the number of ex-imperials who arrived physically unfit and unable to undertake employment of any kind. The First World War made the British government to commit itself to a free passage scheme for its ex-service personnel between 1914 and 1922. The efforts of men such as L. S. Amery who attempted to establish a landed imperial yeomanry overseas is described. Anglicisation was revived in South Africa after the second Anglo-Boer War, and politicisation of the country's soldier settlement was an integral part of the larger debate on British immigration to South Africa. The Australian experience of resettling ex-servicemen on the land after World War I came at a great social and financial cost, and New Zealand's disappointing results demonstrated the nation's vulnerability to outside economic factors.

Empires in the Sun

Empires in the Sun PDF Author: Lawrence James
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1681774992
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Get Book Here

Book Description
The one hundred year history of how Europe coerced the African continent into its various empires—and the resulting story of how Africa succeeded in decolonization. In this dramatic (and often tragic) story of an era that radically changed the course of world history, Lawrence James investigates how, within one hundred years, Europeans persuaded and coerced Africa into becoming a subordinate part of the modern world. His narrative is laced with the experiences of participants and onlookers and introduces the men and women who, for better or worse, stamped their wills on Africa. The continent was a magnet for the high-minded, the adventurous, the philanthropic, the unscrupulous. Visionary pro-consuls rubbed shoulders with missionaries, explorers, soldiers, big-game hunters, entrepreneurs, and physicians. Between 1830 and 1945, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Italy and the United States exported their languages, laws, culture, religions, scientific and technical knowledge and economic systems to Africa. The colonial powers imposed administrations designed to bring stability and peace to a continent that appeared to lack both. The justification for occupation was emancipation from slavery—and the common assumption that late nineteenth-century Europe was the summit of civilization. By 1945 a transformed continent was preparing to take charge of its own affairs, a process of decolonization that took a quick twenty years. This magnificent history also pauses to ask: what did not happen and why?

The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire

The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire PDF Author: Jill C. Bender
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316483452
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Situating the 1857 Indian uprising within an imperial context, Jill C. Bender traces its ramifications across the four different colonial sites of Ireland, New Zealand, Jamaica, and southern Africa. Bender argues that the 1857 uprising shaped colonial Britons' perceptions of their own empire, revealing the possibilities of an integrated empire that could provide the resources to generate and 'justify' British power. In response to the uprising, Britons throughout the Empire debated colonial responsibility, methods of counter-insurrection, military recruiting practices, and colonial governance. Even after the rebellion had been suppressed, the violence of 1857 continued to have a lasting effect. The fears generated by the uprising transformed how the British understood their relationship with the 'colonized' and shaped their own expectations of themselves as 'colonizer'. Placing the 1857 Indian uprising within an imperial context reminds us that British power was neither natural nor inevitable, but had to be constructed.

Iron and Blood

Iron and Blood PDF Author: Peter H. Wilson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674987624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 981

Get Book Here

Book Description
"First published in the United Kingdom by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, Penguin Random House, 2022"--Title page verso.

Military Education and the British Empire, 1815–1949

Military Education and the British Empire, 1815–1949 PDF Author: Douglas E. Delaney
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 077483756X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book Here

Book Description
Common military education was the lifeblood of the armies, navies, and air forces of the British Empire. It permeated every aspect of the profession of arms and was an essential ingredient for success in both war and peace. Military Education and Empire is the first major scholarly work to address the role of military education in maintaining the empire throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bringing together the world’s top scholars on the subject, this book places distinct national narratives – Canadian, Australian, South African, British, and Indian – within a comparative context. The contributors examine military education within the British Empire as a generator of institutional knowledge, as a socializing agent, and as an enhancer of interoperability. This volume is the first to examine military education from a transnational perspective, which allows readers the opportunity to consider the connections between education and empire.

Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana

Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana PDF Author: Ian F. W. Beckett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192512951
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
The battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879, the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War, witnessed the worst single day's loss of British troops between the battle of Waterloo in 1815 and the opening campaigns of the First World War in August 1914. Moreover, decisive defeat at the hands of the Zulu came as an immense shock to a Victorian public that had become used to easy victories over less technologically advanced indigenous foes in an expanding empire. The successful defence of Rorke's Drift, which immediately followed the encounter at Isandlwana (and for which 11 Victoria Crosses were awarded), averted military disaster and went some way to restore wounded British pride, but the sobering memory of defeat at Isandlwana lingered for many years, while the legendary tale of the defence of Rorke's Drift was re-awakened for a new generation in the epic 1964 film Zulu, starring Michael Caine. In this new volume in the Great Battles series, Ian F. W. Beckett tells the story of both battles, investigating not only their immediate military significance but also providing the first overarching account of their continuing cultural impact and legacy in the years since 1879, not just in Britain but also from the once largely inaccessible and overlooked Zulu perspective.

Africa and the Expansion of International Society

Africa and the Expansion of International Society PDF Author: John Anthony Pella, Jr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317653068
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores the West-Central African role in, and experience during, the expansion of international society. Building upon theoretical contributions from the English School of international relations, historical sociology and sociology, it departs from Euro-centric assumptions by analysing how West-Central Africa and West-Central Africans were integral to the ways in which Europe and Africa came together from the fifteenth century through to the twentieth. Initially, diverse scholarship concerned with the expansion of international society is examined, revealing how the process has often been understood as one dictated by Europeans. From there a new approach is developed, one which is better able to examine the expansion as an interactive process between individuals, and which puts the African experience at the heart of study. The empirical research that follows this draws upon primary sources to introduce a number of historically significant and ground-breaking cases into international relations, including; the international relations of West-Central Africa before the European arrival, the emergence and growth of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the attempts to ‘civilize’ Africa, and the ‘scramble’ to colonize Africa. This book argues that the expansion of international society was driven by individual interaction, and was shaped by both Africans and Europeans. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, international relations theory, history, African politics, the English school and constructivism. Author John Anthony Pella introduces his book African and the Expansion of International Society: Surrendering the Savannah http://www.routledge.com/politics/articles/featured_author_john_anthony_pella/

Forestry and Water Conservation in South Africa

Forestry and Water Conservation in South Africa PDF Author: Brett Bennett
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1925022846
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
This innovative interdisciplinary study focuses on the history, science, and policy of tree planting and water conservation in South Africa. South Africa’s forestry sector has sat—often controversially—at the crossroads of policy and scientific debates regarding water conservation, economic development, and biodiversity protection. Bennett and Kruger show how debates about the hydrological impact of exotic tree planting in South Africa shaped the development of modern scientific ideas and state policies relating to timber plantations, water conservation, invasive species control, and biodiversity management within South Africa as well as elsewhere in the world. Forestry and Water Conservation in South Africa shows how scientific research on the impact of exotic and native vegetation led to the development of a comprehensive national policy for conserving water, producing timber, and protecting indigenous species from invasive alien plants. Policies and laws relating to forests and water began to change in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a result of political and administrative changes within South Africa. This book suggests that the country’s contemporary policies towards timber plantations, guided by the National Water Act of 1998, need to be reconsidered in light of the authors’ findings. Bennett and Kruger also call for more interdisciplinary research and greater emphasis on integrated policies and management plans for forestry, invasive alien plants, water conservation, and biodiversity preservation.