The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the rise and fall of that great imperial ...project. The British Empire, he argues, was much more than a group of colonies ruled over by a scattering of British expatriates until eventual independence. It was, above all, a global phenomenon. Its power derived rather less from the assertion of imperial authority than from the fusing together of three different kinds of empire: the settler empire of the 'white dominions'; the commercial empire of the City of London; and 'Greater India' which contributed markets, manpower and military muscle. This unprecedented history charts how this intricate imperial web was first strengthened, then weakened and finally severed on the rollercoaster of global economic, political and geostrategic upheaval on which it rode from beginning to end.
Empire and ethnicity DARWIN, JOHN
Nations and nationalism,
07/2010, Letnik:
16, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Historians and social scientists have typically assumed a conflictual or exploitative relationship between empire and ethnicity. On the one hand, empire might be seen (as perhaps Ernest Gellner saw ...it in Nations and Nationalism) as a superstructure of coercion to which a group of ethnic units were subject. On the other (according to an influential view), empire fabricated ethnicities (tribes or castes) to divide and rule. This article suggests that both of these views are too crude. In the British case at least (and in the modern history of empire, no generalisation that excludes the British case has much value), ‘imperial ethnicity’ was a much more subtle phenomenon. It existed ‘at home’ as one element in a more complex identity. It was a powerful force in British settler societies, where an indigenous identity could not be imagined. And, perhaps surprisingly, it was deeply attractive to some colonial elites in Asia and Africa – at least for a time.
Source attribution of mercury (Hg) is critical for policy development to minimize the impact of Hg in wastes. Mercury content of consumer products and its subsequent release into the waste stream of ...Cebu City, Philippines, is estimated through surveys that employed validated, enumerator-administered questionnaires. Initially, a citywide survey (
n
= 1636) indicates that each household annually generates 1.07 ppm Hg (i.e., mg Hg/kg waste) and that linear and compact fluorescent lamps (17.2 %) and thermometers (52.1 %) are the major sources of Hg. A subsequent survey (
n
= 372) in the vicinity of the city’s municipal solid waste landfill shows that residents in the area annually generate 0.38 ppm Hg per household, which is less than the citywide mean; surprisingly though, less affluent respondents living closer to the landfill site reported more Hg from thermometers and sphygmomanometers. Analysis of collected soil (0.238 ppm), leachate water (6.5 ppb), sediment (0.109 ppm), and three plants (0.393 to 0.695 ppm) shows no significant variation throughout five stations in and around the landfill site, although the period of collection is significant for soil (
P
= 0.001) and
Cenchrus echinatus
(
P
= 0.016). Detected Hg in the landfill is considerably less than the annual estimated release, indicating that there is minimal accumulation of Hg in the soil or in plants. As a result of this project, a policy brief has been provided to the Cebu City council in aid of hazardous waste legislation.
In an age when both the traditional book form and the world that the British Empire made are arguably in crisis, it is remarkable that big books on British imperialism abound. Contributors to this ...roundtable assess scale and genre as well as content in their discussion of the claims and impact of John Darwin's tome, The Empire Project. John Darwin's response is also included.
This paper describes a novel approach to the exploration of the changes in relationships between Health Service organisations that would be consequent upon ongoing national policy initiatives. The ...approach involved the development and running of a role-play workshop attended by health service managers. Innovatively the whole workshop design process was shaped by drama theory, and it is contended here that this led to distinctive benefits for those taking part. The paper sets out the workshop development activity in a way that makes it accessible for others to apply in different domains.
