British Culture and the End of EmpireStuart Ward 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 |
MacKenzie | 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 |
233 | |
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adventure Australia became Brit Britain British culture British Empire British imperial British rule British subjects British travel Britons century citizenship climbers colonial colour Conquest of Everest continued Cook coronation cricket David David Cannadine debate decolonisation Dominions Eagle Annual economic Empire Windrush end of empire England English film Flora Fringe Government heroes Hillary History Hsu-Ming Teo Hunt Ibid idea immigrants imperial decline implosion independence India Indian Ink John Jonathan Miller Kenneth Tynan Labour legacy Lion Annual London Lord MacKenzie Macmillan Manchester University Press ment migration Morrah nationalist nostalgia Office Oxford Peter Peter Cook play policy-makers political post-colonial post-imperial post-war Britain racial RGS Archives role Round Table satire boom Second World sense social Society South Africa South Asians sport Stoppard story Suez crisis Table's television Tenzing theatre tion Tom Stoppard tour tourist tradition United Kingdom West Zealand