British Culture and the End of Empire

Stuart Ward

Manchester University Press, 2001 - History - 241 pages

The demise of the British Empire in the three decades following the Second World War is a theme that has been well traversed in studies of post-war British politics, economics and foreign relations. Yet there has been strikingly little attention to the question of how these dramatic changes in Britain's relationships with the wider world were reflected in British culture. This volume addresses this central issue, arguing that the social and cultural impact of decolonisation had as significant an effect on the imperial centre as on the colonial periphery. Far from being a matter of indifference or resigned acceptance as is often suggested, the fall of the British Empire came as a profound shock to the British national imagination, and resonated widely in British popular culture.

Contents

• Introduction Stuart Ward page: 1
• The persistence of empire in metropolitan culture: 21
• the Empire and Commonwealth: 57
• British theatre and imperial decline: 73
• the satire boom and: 91
• English cricket: 111
• films and: 128
• childrens popular: 145
• British travel: 163
• migration in the last gasp: 180
• decolonisation: 200
• India Inc ? Nostalgia memory and the empire of things: 217
• Index page: 233

About the author

Stuart Ward is Lecturer in History at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King's College London. He also holds a lectureship at the University of Southern Denmark

Bibliographic information

• Title: British Culture and the End of Empire; Studies in Imperialism
• Editor: Stuart Ward
• Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2001
• ISBN: 0719060486, 9780719060489
• Length: 241 pages
• Subjects: History / Europe / Great Britain; Political Science / Political Process / Leadership; Social Science / Popular Culture