Race, Nation and Empire Making Histories, 1750 to the Present

This book is about the ways in which questions of race and empire have figured in British history writing since the late 18th century. While the nation has been at the centre of British history since then, rarely has it been connected to issues of race and empire, issues which are of compelling importance in contemporary Britain. The essays in this collection show how histories written in the past, in different political times, dealt with, considered, or avoided and disavowed Britain’s imperial role and issues of difference. Ranging from enlightenment historians to the present, these essays consider both individual historians, including such key figures as E. A. Freeman, G. M. Trevelyan and Keith Hancock, and also broader themes such as the relationship between liberalism, race and historiography and how we might re-think British history in the light of trans-national, trans-imperial and cross-cultural analysis. British history may come to look very different once it is de-centred from the national and placed within an imperial and global framework. ‘Britishness’ and what ‘British’ history is have become major cultural and political issues in our time. But as these essays demonstrate, there is no single national story: race, empire and difference have pulsed through the writing of British history. The contributors include some of the most distinguished historians writing today: C. A. Bayly, Antoinette Burton, Saul Dubow, Geoff Eley, Theodore Koditschek, Marilyn Lake, John M. MacKenzie, Karen O’Brien, Sonya O. Rose, Bill Schwarz, Kathleen Wilson.

Catherine Hall is Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London. Keith McClelland is a Research Associate on the Legacies of British slave-ownership project in the Department of History, University College London.