A common understanding of the British Empire, like that of Eric Hobsbawm in his 1987 book The Age of Empire: 1875-1914, tends to identify the British Empire with modern British imperialism as it existed in the 1870-1947 period. In 1861, the estimated land mass of the British Empire had been 8.5 million square miles. By 1891, it had grown to 11.9 million square miles. By 1920, it covered 13.7 million square miles and contained 449 million people—one quarter of the world’s land mass and of its population. A recent book claims that the British Empire reached its peak in terms of square mileage as the Palestine mandate administered by Britain came into force on 29 September 1923. Compared to the French, German, Dutch, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires, the British was by far the most significant. Economically, the whole of the British Empire in 1913 had an output of £6.467 billion, of which Britain contributed £2.4 billion, and the colonies £3.97 billion. Colonial output was 1.59 times British output.
Compared to the French, German, Dutch, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires, the British was by far the most significant.
In his new book Britain’s Empires. A History, 1600-2020, James Heartfield argues that this idea of a single British Empire identified with how it was operating at its height is misleading. It is preferable to talk of Britain’s Empires in the plural. Rather than belonging to what Hobsbawm referred to as the “long 19th century”, these British Empires go back much further in time. “Britain’s Empires grew from the moment Norman England began to unite with or colonise its neighbours”.
To make sense of Britain’s successive Empires, Heartfield has separated them into five eras: the Old Empire (1600-1776), the Empire of Free Trade (1776-1870), the New Imperialism (1870-1945), the Commonwealth (1946-1989), and the Empire of Human Rights (1989 to date). The first four eras are covered in about 100 pages each, and the last one in just over 50 pages.
Against some transhistoric view of Empire, for Heartfield “there is no one overarching explanation to Britain’s successive empires. In trying to understand the British Empire it is better to think of it as being driven by distinctive forces in different eras”. A strength of the book is how it carefully works to avoid the myths of origins, continuity and teleology. Heartfield enables us to move from a notion of a transhistoric British imperialism to the concrete analysis of concrete situations in which Britain’s Empires operated.
A strength of the book is how it carefully works to avoid the myths of origins, continuity and teleology. Heartfield enables us to move from a notion of a transhistoric British imperialism to the concrete analysis of concrete situations in which Britain’s Empires operated.
That said, the historian Nicholas Canny has warned of the dangers of applying the concept of Empire or imperialism to the first two eras covered by the book: “The study of the British Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries presents special difficulties because no Empire, as the term subsequently came to be understood, then existed, while the adjective ‘British’ meant little to most inhabitants of Britain and Ireland”.
The book foregrounds the economic questions of how Britain made use of the resources and labour of its subject peoples and enriched its domestic economy. But Heartfield does not neglect the importance of the ideological and moral drives of empire. He provides a wealth of information on his five eras, not just concerning British imperialists but also their opponents, as sections on places like Ireland, Egypt or India illustrate. While very rich in empirical details, facts and figures, the book unfortunately neglects the discussion of Empire, imperialism, colonialism in their formation and relations as concepts. Still the 1038 references for the 41 chapters of the book show that the author did serious research, although most of it is based on secondary sources. These secondary sources reveal that Heartfield affiliates himself with the most creative works coming from the tradition of historical materialism.
While very rich in empirical details, facts and figures, the book unfortunately neglects the discussion of Empire, imperialism, colonialism in in their formation and relations as concepts.
From its height in 1923, during the later parts of the twentieth century Britain’s Empire went into gradual decline, primarily due to the rise of the United States as a leading power. If Britain remained the largest Empire in 1939, as early as 1929 more of the world’s money reserves were held as dollars than as sterling. In 1950, half of all international trade was paid for with sterling pounds, but by 1970, only a fifth was. For Heartfield, by the end of the Second World War the British Empire had become just a “junior partner” to US hegemony.
Second, after the loss of India in 1947 and the retreat from Suez in 1956, almost all British colonies became independent. Heartfield lists 43 colonies achieving independence from 1947 to 1997. In 1967, the British Prime Minister announced the withdrawal of British troops from bases East of Suez, showing that the Overseas Empire was definitely downsizing. In 1977 a government Green Paper admitted that “Britain is no longer an imperial power”. But for Heartfield, the Commonwealth provided a model to “repackage” the Empire: “Britain’s Empire was renamed a Commonwealth after the war … Britain still kept up an imperialistic attitude in its foreign policy, keeping military bases overseas, interfering in its former colonies through diplomatic and military means”.
Britain’s Empires is not just a topic of historical interest but relevant to current events. Since 1990, imperialism has been rebranded as so-called “humanitarian intervention”: “Both champions and critics of humanitarian intervention contrasted their chosen course with the old politics of Empire. The champions had claimed that their interventions were a break with the old policies of Empire because they were not selfish or predatory. The critics struck a harsh blow when they replied that the interventions in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Somalia were examples of ‘humanitarian imperialism’. Since the ideals claimed were just a disguise for selfish interests then it stood to reason that the new liberal interventionism was in truth just the old imperialism dressed up in fancy clothes”.
As examples of this new form of imperialism, Heartfield lists and discusses ten major military engagements British forces have fought in since 1990. The experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan and other places “were not Empire as it was” but they “were imperialistic in their attitude to the peoples they commanded. In other respects, the war was very different from the old colonial wars”. In terms of comparison, one must be careful to be historically specific.
Heartfield’s book is also relevant for another reason. When the United Nations was established in 1945, only 51 nation states were members; today there are 193 member states. Almost a third of the world’s population (750 million in 1945) lived in territories that were non-self-governing, dependent on and subjugated by colonial powers. Since the creation of the United Nations, more than 80 former colonies have gained independence.
Most countries in the world have been invaded and occupied at some stage in their history. According to one estimate, only five currently recognized UN states managed to avoid European control and invasion during their history. The United Kingdom invaded or fought conflicts in the territory of 171 out of the 193 current United Nations member states. Only 22 were not invaded. Most of the countries in the world today live with the problems caused by Britain’s Empires, even if these empires themselves no longer exist; as the struggles of partition in India, Palestine, and Ireland can testify.
As Heartfield contends: “From the standpoint of 2020, the history of Empire looks disreputable rather than uplifting”. And as the Irish Republican song Joe McDonnell puts it, Britain’s Empire “plundered many nations, divided many lands, terrorized their peoples, ruled with an iron hand”. But the author is critical of some of the recent attempts to ostensibly “decolonize” the teaching of history and the transmission of the past, as symbolized by the destruction of statues of people like Cecile Rhodes.
“As welcome as the expanded interest in teaching the history of the Empire and as welcome as greater research into colonial history are, any historian ought to be circumspect about a movement that tears down monuments. The study of the past should aim to widen knowledge, not to shut it down … The study of history should not be arrested at the allocation of moral judgements but deepens and broadens all the time”. This is something that James Heartfield Britain’s Empires. A History, 1600-2020 has been able to achieve.
James Heartfield (2023) Britain’s Empires. A History, 1600-2020, London: Anthem Press.
