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  • 2022
  • Book

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

By: Caroline M. Elkins
  • Format:Print
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Abstract

Sprawling across a quarter of the world’s land mass and claiming nearly seven hundred million people, Britain’s twentieth-century empire was the largest empire in human history. For many Britons, it epitomized their nation’s cultural superiority, but what legacy did the island nation deliver to the world? Covering more than two hundred years of history, Caroline Elkins reveals an evolutionary and racialized doctrine that espoused an unrelenting deployment of violence to secure and preserve the nation’s imperial interests. She outlines how ideological foundations of violence were rooted in the Victorian era calls for punishing recalcitrant “natives,” and how over time, its forms became increasingly systematized. And she makes clear that when Britain could no longer maintain control over the violence it provoked and enacted, it retreated from empire, destroying and hiding incriminating evidence of its policies and practices.

Drawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of Britain’s political divide in the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain’s empire and the nation’s imperial identity at home, Elkins upends long-held myths and sheds new light on empire’s role in shaping the world today.

Keywords

Imperialism; Violence; Colonialism; History; Government and Politics; Power and Influence; Race; Policy; United Kingdom

Citation

Elkins, Caroline M. Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2022.
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About The Author

Caroline M. Elkins

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • January 27, 2024
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    Critics of D.E.I. Forget That It Works

    By: Caroline M. Elkins, Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
    • November 2022 (Revised October 2024)
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    'A Marshall Plan for Africa': James Mwangi and Equity Group Holdings

    By: Caroline M. Elkins, Debora L. Spar, Zeke Gillman and Julia M. Comeau
    • June 2022
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    FIELD Immersion 2022: Chattanooga, Tennessee

    By: Caroline M. Elkins and Tom Quinn
More from the Author
  • Critics of D.E.I. Forget That It Works By: Caroline M. Elkins, Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
  • 'A Marshall Plan for Africa': James Mwangi and Equity Group Holdings By: Caroline M. Elkins, Debora L. Spar, Zeke Gillman and Julia M. Comeau
  • FIELD Immersion 2022: Chattanooga, Tennessee By: Caroline M. Elkins and Tom Quinn
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