Incredibly, there is no comprehensive history dedicated to
resistance in the 19th and 20th century British empire. This is not
for want of attention to the enemies of imperialism. There are
accounts of the nature and character of colonial discourse and of
the response of discrete nationalist figures and organizations to
the incursions of the colonial state. There are narratives of
episodic rebellion and uprising and diagnoses of imperial fatigue
and decline. There are even a few choice histories of metropolitan
anti-imperialism. But synthetic analyses of those who struggled
with and against imperial power have failed to materialize, even as
imperial blockbusters fly off the shelves, both virtual and real.
This is particularly striking in an era of spectacular and
empire-humbling counterinsurgency like our own. The "Pax
Britannica" is thus not simply an ornamental trace of mid- to
high-Victorian optimism that guaranteed the benefits of the
civilizing mission. In the absence of counter-narratives of
protest, resistance and revolution, it remains the working
presumption of British imperial history in the 21st century. This
project offers the first thoroughgoing account of what British
imperialism looked like from below and of how tenuous its hold on
alien populations was throughout its long, unstable life. The
Trouble with Empire is intended as a brief but thorough
introduction to the nature and consequences of resistance to
British imperialism. It spans the 19th and 20th centuries, when
discontented subjects of empire made their unhappiness felt across
the globe, from Ireland to Canada to India to Africa to
Australasia, in direct response to incursions of military might and
imperial capitalism. Some of these instances, such as the Indian
Mutiny and the Anglo-Zulu War, are extremely well known. Those
deemed "lesser" - the first and second Afghan Wars and the Opium
War, for example - have also gained notoriety as Queen Victoria's
"little wars." By taking the long view, moving not just across a
variety of geopolitical sites but also across the whole of the
period 1840-1955, the commonalities between ostensibly different
forms of resistance-in political settings, at workplaces, and at
borders-can be better seen and, thus, the structural weaknesses of
imperial formations can be examined. The emphasis on the power of
protest is intended, in other words, not only to reveal indigenous
agency but to illuminate the limits of imperial power, official and
unofficial, as well.
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