Introduction: British Imperial History and Its Antecedents

Abstract

In or around 1912, the British Empire overtook history. Rising demands for representation and rights in the ‘subject empire’ clashed with Dominion assertions of primacy in matters of immigration and defense. Anti-Asian and anti-black discrimination in settler societies belied talk of unity and the equality of subjects. The Empire could not hold. Or so feared Lionel Curtis and Sidney Low as they watched the British state’s halting response to the ferment, and as each contemplated a wholesale reworking of historical and strategic studies to avert deeper crisis.