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Caught between its Chinese and British colonial history, Hong Kong’s path to self-actualization is unsure without preserving its tangible and intangible heritage. This paper examines the region’s several layers of heritage through the movement to preserve the Star and the Queen piers in 2007, using two theoretical frameworks, Abbas’ culture of disappearance and Tunbridge’s dissonant heritage. Despite the piers’ demolition, their role is vital in understanding conflicting histories and decolonizing the region’s identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Edwardian era, the British Dominions adopted policies of imperial preference amid a period of rising imports from the United States and industrial continental Europe. Hitherto, there has been no econometric assessment of whether these policies diverted the Dominions' imports towards the Empire, as was intended. This article focuses on New Zealand's initial policy of imperial preference, codified in the Preferential and Reciprocal Trade Act of 1903. New Zealand's policy was unique insofar as it extended preference to only certain commodities and not others. Using propensity score matching, this study exploits the cross‐commodity variation in the extension of preference and finds that, on the whole, the Preferential and Reciprocal Trade Act did not divert New Zealand's imports towards the Empire. However, for those few commodities receiving very high absolute margins of preference (20 per cent ad valorem), a statistically significant effect of the preferential policy is found. Altogether, this case study of New Zealand reveals a contrast between the Edwardian system of imperial preference and the trade‐diverting system of imperial preference that resulted from the Ottawa Agreements of the interwar era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how British imperial historians of the early twentieth century, the zenith of the colonial era, approached the writing of British colonial women into their histories. In the early nineteenth century, hundreds of British women went out to the British colonies in Southeast Asia, yet to date, their stories and experiences have largely been neglected by historians. In general, the nature of the imperial project, with its emphasis on masculinist values of conquest, territorial expansionism and despotic administration, left little scope for the inclusion of women's experiences and contributions in its histories. This article focuses closely on how British historians of the period of high imperialism approached writing about two prominent women, the wives of an imperialist hero, Stamford Raffles. It shows how conventional assumptions about women were entangled with prevailing gendered ideologies, such as the madonna/whore stereotypes, which in turn were enmeshed with notions concerning Orientalism, class and race. The result was a deeply ambivalent portrayal of these colonial women, which awkwardly brought together divergent elements of sexual scandal, wifely devotion, literary achievement, delicate health, career promotion, emotional care taking and judgments about beauty. These positionings tell us more about contemporary cultural discourses than they do about the women themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caroline Elkins' book, "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire," presents a critical examination of the British empire as a civilizing project. Elkins highlights the contradictions between the liberal rhetoric of England's "civilizing mission" and the systemic violence that established and maintained imperial rule. The book traces the development of liberal imperialism from the 1880s to the 1960s, exploring events such as the Boer War, the Amritsar massacre, and the conflicts in Ireland and Palestine. Elkins also discusses the legacy of empire and the ongoing debate over its portrayal, particularly in relation to national identity and attitudes towards minorities. The reviewer notes that while the book focuses on the British experience, it acknowledges that other empires, such as the French and American, have also been marked by violence and contradictions. [Extracted from the article]

The present article is built on the premise that both the British Empire in the 19th century (during its rivalry with Russia, known as the Great Game) and the United States in the 20th century treated Afghanistan as a means to an end in their quest to fulfil their strategic interests, without much concern for the country's people, history and traditions, which ultimately contributed to their failure: Britain was forced to accept Afghanistan's independence in 1919 at the end of the third Anglo-Afghan war, while the US withdrew its troops in August 2021, putting an end to what proved to be an unwinnable war. The article's main body examines the British and American presence in Afghanistan through the lens of a historical comparison meant to highlight the similarities and differences in their approaches, while the conclusion contains a few lessons the US should learn from Afghanistan that might, ideally, inform its future interventionist strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the issue of how successfully have historians made use of the concept of masculinity in relation to the British Atlantic world. It does so in three parts. The first part unfolds the history of the research of masculinity in Great Britain and her North American colonies. The second part presents the key anthropological and sociological concepts: masculinity and masculinities. In the third part, light is shed on historians who used the term(s) when studying the British Atlantic world. The author claims that historians, hitherto, have not used all the sociological tools to its fullest potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the debate over whether Ireland was a colony of the British Empire. The author discusses "Captain Colson," an Irish ballad which provides clues regarding the relationship between Ireland and the British Empire and notes revisionist and postcolonial divisions in historical views regarding British imperialism in Ireland. The article addresses the politicisation of the debate, examines author Tom Dunne's post-colonial analysis of Ireland and Great Britain's relationship and the contemporary implications of their earlier relationship.

The article offers information on John Lisle, and the last eighteen months of the Comwellian Protectoral regime. Lisle was one of the Commissioners of Great Seal during the Interregnum. He wrote the manuscript book "Abridgements of Chancery Causes," which cast a little more light on this period, enhancing the sense of Oliver Cromwell's waning grip on affairs during the last months of his life, and of the uncertainty, confusion and division at the centre that followed his death. The manuscript also provokes some reflection on the better known period of factional infighting during the session of Richard Cromwell's Parliament, which eventually led to the overthrow of the Protectorate.

The article discusses the American and British history from a Canadian vantage point. It is stated that there are great similarities between the role of earlier British empire in the world and the contemporary American role. For both countries, achieving international leadership and establishing an imperial order were driven by real economic and security needs. However, there are some disturbing signs in the current administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, which in order to meet the challenges related to September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is also confronting those it only perceives as enemies.

The American Revolution was indeed a battle of opinion that began in the early 1760's. After the end of the Seven Years' War (1754-1763), the British sought to consolidate their Empire by expanding Parliamentary control over the colonies, by revoking the old charters that virtually gave them home rule, and by the radical alterations in the British tax structure so as to impose unfamiliar burdens of taxes upon the colonists. All that constituted a badly needed program of administrative reform which failed to reach its main objects. Accordingly, it inspired colonial attention, and mobilized the colonists to resist the British imperial policy. This article analyzes how the colonists reacted severely to the British, how they moved to the armed resistance, and how the Revolutionary War started in Massachusetts colony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]