Opium (a drug derived from the opium poppy) was grown in and shipped from British India to the south China coast, where it was sold for silver that British traders used to buy tea; the tea then travelled to Britain and, before it disappeared into British teacups, the government exacted its customs duties. Establishing what the empire was at different times, and exactly what varieties of empire existed, is crucial because choosing which version of the British empire to focus upon tends to influence the stories that historians write about it. The theory was that true Britons would be forged out of their imperial role, but I believe the opposite happened. Another idea might be to track a particular world event - like the Indian Rebellion - in the newspaper press across the globe. Public schools also followed the English model. There can be a temptation to select only those parts of the empire that support a desired thesis. People often make assumptions that they know what the British empire was, when in fact it was an umbrella term that covered a multitude of different types of spaces, different kinds of authority, different kinds of imperial connections. People in the Caribbean as well as mixed-race people in southern Africa or the elites in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka could have a strong sense of British values. The best dissertations are often grounded in manuscript sources. We use cookies to give you the best online experience. That is why 1807 was such a watershed for the British empire, because it changed that old symbiotic relationship between the state and the merchants. The empire stays with us in the fact that English is the international language and we’re all lazy about learning other languages. It seems awful to us now but at the time they were only doing what the state had been encouraging them to do for 200 years. The phrase ‘British empire’ was in common use from the union of parliaments in 1707. The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine. Until recently historians had concluded that decolonisation had comparatively minimal impact in Britain itself. The extension of settlement, including the effects of contact between European settlers in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples.
Below are some possible themes and example titles.
But even if Britain has done its best to forget its opium-trading past, this is a history that has resonances for global politics today. If you are stuck for ideas, it can often work well to focus on a particular book, newspaper, periodical or publisher that interests you, and base your dissertation around a publication and reception history. However, there is no doubt that in the long run specific sectors of the Indian economy did suffer under the yoke of imperialism – the cotton industry was profoundly damaged by cheap imports from Lancashire and Scotland from the 1830s onwards. This has been accompanied by the belief that somehow you can just draw a line under the whole experience and that it was of itself a bad thing and we have somehow outgrown it with the return of countries to independence. If you look at every single photograph taken of Commonwealth heads of government meeting after the foundation of that rather odd institution, the one constant is the presence of the Queen in the centre of the group photograph. Traditionally, empire had provided employment for a significant sector of Britain’s middle and upper classes, especially in the imperial services. To establish fully the strength of the imperial impact, you would have to stitch together a number of case-studies linking different parts of the empire to specific localities in Britain.
A history of arts, crafts and commerce in the medieval England. If you subscribe to BBC History Magazine Print or Digital Editions then you can unlock 10 years’ worth of archived history material fully searchable by Topic, Location, Period and Person. I also think it shows itself in the engagement many people in this country feel with the rest of the world: that’s evidenced by the far higher rate of passport possession in Britain than in, say, a place like the United States; by the engagement of British charities all over the developing world. In the late 19th century in New Zealand there was almost complete democracy for white people – much greater democracy than in Britain itself – but in large parts of Africa democracy was a distant dream. The 1860 Beijing treaty, concluding the second Opium War, finally forced the legalisation of the drug in China. Select a topic which adheres to your Institute guidelines. This seems to be a rudimentary question but we can lose sight of it. This it did successfully and so the period of decolonisation actually coincided with commercial expansion for the Mint because it was able to adapt. ‘Black death’ – the cause, spread and effect of the bubonic plague in rural and urban England. Huge amounts of British capital were invested in India, and in the case of the railway system the British government actually guaranteed a good minimum percentage return for British investors. Love during the time of Queen Victoria – a study of class, gender and sexuality. In addition, you are going to have a big advantage over other students, since you will be getting outside help. Our best wishes for a productive day. On the eve of the American revolution there was a strong sense in the 13 colonies that so long as you were white and Protestant then you were British or more specifically English. It is, however, doubtful whether the mass of British people ever felt much sense of common identity. The American revolution was undoubtedly a big defeat and yet I would say that it had a positive effect on the British empire. The interesting life of Mary, Queen of Scots. As things stand, we have only a hazy view of the extent of the economic influence of empire on Britain itself. Indian Independence in the British and Indian Press, ‘An Immense Field for Missions’: Emancipation Mapping in British Guiana, 1833-1841, The British Construction of Muslim Identity in India: William Wilson Hunter and his, The Newspaper Trail: Britain's Global Operation to Counter Indian Seditious Publications, 1908-1918, Printing the Exhibition: the Active Role of the Popular Press in the Organisation, Expectations and Perceptions of the Great Exhibition of 1851, The publication and reception history of Mungo Park's, Printing, publishing and editing James Rennell's, Press censorship in colonial New South Wales, 1790-1850, Reporting Gandhi's death in the colonial newspaper press, Proslavery journalism in London, 1780-1834, Reporting Partition: news and the end of empire, Buying and selling books in colonial Cape Town, 1820-1850, Astronomical journalism: reporting a solar eclipse across the British Empire, Selling sugar, buying slaves: advertising in the Jamaican newspaper press, Books, tea and opium: The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China, Gutenberg in Shanghai: producing the first Chinese metal type, Reading Morant Bay: slave rebellions in the colonial newspaper press, Reading science at sea: Charles Darwin's library aboard the.