During the tumultuous closing decades of the nineteenth century,
as the prospect of democracy loomed and as intensified global
economic and strategic competition reshaped the political
imagination, British thinkers grappled with the question of how
best to organize the empire. Many found an answer to the anxieties
of the age in the idea of Greater Britain, a union of the United
Kingdom and its settler colonies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
and southern Africa. In "The Idea of Greater Britain," Duncan Bell
analyzes this fertile yet neglected debate, examining how a wide
range of thinkers conceived of this vast "Anglo-Saxon" political
community. Their proposals ranged from the fantastically
ambitious--creating a globe-spanning nation-state--to the practical
and mundane--reinforcing existing ties between the colonies and
Britain. But all of these ideas were motivated by the disquiet
generated by democracy, by challenges to British global supremacy,
and by new possibilities for global cooperation and communication
that anticipated today's globalization debates. Exploring attitudes
toward the state, race, space, nationality, and empire, as well as
highlighting the vital theoretical functions played by visions of
Greece, Rome, and the United States, Bell illuminates important
aspects of late-Victorian political thought and intellectual
life.
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