Heroic imperialists in Africa The promotion of British and French colonial heroes, 1870-1939

From the height of 'New Imperialism' until the Second World War, three generations of heroes of the British and French empires in Africa were selected, manufactured and packaged for consumption by a metropolitan public eager to discover new horizons and to find comfort in the concept of a 'civilising mission'. This book looks at imperial heroism by examining the legends of a dozen major colonial figures on both sides of the Channel, revisiting the familiar stories of Livingstone, Gordon and Kitchener under a radically new angle, and throwing light on their French counterparts, often less famous in the Anglophone world but certainly equally fascinating.

Berny Sèbe is Lecturer in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Introduction
PART I: CONTEXTS
1. The Emergence of a New Type of Hero: British and French Contexts
2. Imperial Heroes and the Market I: The Written World
3. Imperial Heroes and the Market II: The Audiovisual World
PART II: USES
4. Imperial Heroes and Domestic Politics
5. Cross-Channel Entente? The Values Embodied by Imperial Heroes
PART III: CASE STUDIES
6. The Creation of the Marchand Legend, 1895-1906
7. George Warrington Steevens, Blackwood Publishers and the Making of With Kitchener to Khartoum
Conclusion
Biographical Sketches
Index