Ornamentalism

With the return of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997, the empire that had lasted three hundred years and upon which the sun never set finally lost its hold on the world and slipped into history. But the question of how we understand the British Empire--its origins, nature, purpose, and effect on the world it ruled--is far from settled. In this incisive work, David Cannadine looks at the British Empire from a new perspective--through the eyes of those who created and ruled it--and offers fresh insight into the driving forces behind the Empire. Arguing against the views of Edward Said and others, Cannadine suggests that the British were motivated not only by race, but also by class. The British wanted to domesticate the exotic world of their colonies and to reorder the societies they ruled according to an idealized image of their own class hierarchies.

Cannadine looks at the British Empire from a new perspective--through the eyes of those who created and ruled it--and offers fresh insight into the driving forces behind the Empire. He claims the British wanted to domesticate the exotic world of their colonies and to reorder the societies they ruled according to an idealized image of their own class hierarchies.

A lively account....As entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought-provoking.--Boston Globe

Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties.--New Yorker

A thoughtful and spirited book....In the privacy of their small worlds, away from the postmodernists and the radical historians writing 'peripheral' history, there can be heard fond retrospects of the empire and its pageantry by ordinary, unfashionable men and women. Were these people to tell us what they recall of the empire's doings, I suspect that they would echo some of the truths of Cannadine's subtle and learned retrieval of that imperial history.--Fouad Ajami, The New York Times Book Review

A study of British imperial attitudes that is light in size and tone but filled with weighty significance. In less than 200 pages of text, he has reopened the debate on the British Empire and has brought fresh insight into the ways that nations project their power around the globe.--The Philadelphia Inquirer

This is a lovely book, full of insights and unfamiliar perspectives. Were the rulers of Victoria's Empire more snobbish or more racist? They hardly knew the difference, for the common people of their own nation were very little less mysterious or threatening to them than the dark sullen masses of India or Africa. At least this much can be said, though, and David Cannadine says it: The snobbery diluted and tempered the racism.--John Derbyshire, National Review

Cannadine writes with insight, felicity and wit.--The Washington Post Book World

Ornamentalism is well written and closely argued.--Southern Humanities Review

Offers a fresh perspective on the British Empire and its creators.--Chicago Tribune

Like everything that Cannadine writes...Ornamentalism is vigorous, stimulating, and bursting with ideas....It should be read by anyone who is interested in politics and society in the British Empire.--Philip Ziegler, The Spectator

A fresh perspective on British history, in which Cannadine argues against racial interpretations of colonialism and maintains that the British Empire was sustained by a universal respect for social class....A controversial work that is sure to spark debate and painstaking and temperate argument, written with a good command of the facts and a remarkable sense of proportion.--Kirkus Reviews

Cannadine is excellent on the uses of pageantry and on the kitschy extremes it had reached by the nineteen-twenties.--New Yorker

A lively account...The basic, and quite intriguing, argument is that the British designed their empire not on the basis of racial subjugation, but of class privilege--the same hierarchy of class privilege that guided and ruled British society itself...Ornamentalism is as entertaining in its anecdotes as it is thought- provoking.--Boston Globe

David Cannadine's Ornamentalism is so stimulating and original that it will now and forever after be read hand in hand with Edward Said's Orientalism. Cannadine's vision is quite different. He brilliantly recovers the world-view and social presuppositions of those who dominated and ruled the Empire, and thus restores the Empire to British social history. No other work succeeds as well in putting the history of Britain back into the history of the empire, and the history of the empire back into the history of Britain.--Wm. Roger Louis, Editor-in-Chief, The Oxford History of the British Empire