Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Troubled Ground of Empire
Chapter 1: Subject to Setback: Pax Britannica and the Question of
Military Victory
Chapter 2: Subject to Interruption: Economic Protest and the Limits
of Imperial Order
Chapter 3: Subject to Insurgency: Enemies of Empire and the
Challenge to Governability
Epilogue: Toward a Minority History of British Imperialism
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Antoinette Burton is Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational
Studies and Professor of History at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. The recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim
Foundation fellowship, she is the author of numerous works on the
British empire, women and feminism, and world history, including At
the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in
Late-Victorian Britain and Empire in Question:
Reading, Writing and Teaching British Imperialism.
"It is rare to encounter a book that directly and effectively
challenges the central paradigms of its field, and rarer still for
one to do so successfully. In this book, Antoinette Burton ...
takes up this task with her characteristic verve ... The
implications of this argument are profound. Not only should the
narrative history of the British Empire be reinterpreted as one of
constant instability and challenge, but the fundamental precepts of
so much imperial
historiography must also be re-examined ... Burton has brought
trouble, and those who caused it, to the centre of imperial
history, and presented a powerful argument against any who would
view the
sunrise and sunset of Britain's empire without careful
consideration of the long, fraught and turbulent day that lay
between them." -- Sascha Auerbach, English Historical Review
"Antoinette Burton provides an entertaining overview of
resistance..."--Peter Robb, The Historian
"[A]n exciting read for historians who have engaged with histories
of dissent, and it should be required reading for historians of the
British Empire more generally....[I]deal for undergraduate students
in particular. It is eloquently written and forcefully
argued."--Kate O'Malley, Victorian Studies
"Antoinette Burton's The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern
British Imperialism is an exciting read for historians who have
engaged with histories of dissent, and it should be required
reading for historians of the British Empire more generally....It
is eloquently written and forcefully argued."--Kate O'Malley,
Victorian Studies
"Antoinette Burton has argued influentially for a new imperial
history that draws insights from cultural, social, economic,
political, and gender studies and merges domestic British history
with that of the British Empire. The Trouble with Empire is a
stirring call to advance that historiography by centering it on
challenges to empire, rather than taking for granted British
strength and the traditional narrative arc of imperial rise and
fall....Written
clearly and vigorously with admirable lack of jargon, The Trouble
with Empire will be crucial for graduate courses on empire and
extremely valuable for scholars working on empire, decolonization,
and
colonialism's legacies for the world today. Advanced undergraduate
researchers will also find it helpful. It is simultaneously a
satisfying read and a stimulating one, which will inspire scholars
to continue along the paths Burton has marked out."--Lucy P.
Chester, Journal of Modern History
"The Trouble with Empire is an important corrective to a number of
long-running assumptions within imperial historiography. Accessibly
written and reasonably priced, it should become required reading
for graduate and undergraduate students of European imperialism and
of modern Britain. It will also appeal to anyone interested in the
lasting impact of empire on our contemporary world."--Ellen
Boucher, History
"At a time when voices increasingly suggest that the imperial turn
is over, this fine essay by Antoinette Burton comes as a salutary
reminder that even in the case of Britain, much work remains to be
done before we have anything like a complete account of the
imperial experience What Burton does so well is to demonstrate that
such incidences, far from being sporadic and isolated, were part of
the quotidian reality of colonial rule, and unless and until they
are
integrated fully into narratives of empire, our grasp of the
imperial experience as a whole remains impoverished."--John
Marriott, Journal of British Studies
"A brilliant work of synthesis...[with] a convincing and
provocative overarching argument The Trouble with Empire
effectively demolishes the rise-and-fall narrative of imperial
history, exposing its baseless foundational assumptions. It
succeeds in bringing the rebellious actions of colonized
populations to the fore in all of their diversity While The Trouble
with Empire will reinvigorate debates about imperial history and
take those debates
to a wider audience, it should also be troubling for imperial
historians as they continue to confront the challenges facing the
field."--Jonathan Saha, American Historical Review
"Provocative and relevant...Make[s] a plausible case that even at
its apex, 'the empire on which the sun never set' contained the
seeds of its own destruction."--Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign
Affairs
"The multiple tensions that characterized the empire are thoroughly
familiar to historians who work in the local archives of empire.
But they are only now beginning to be taken seriously by imperial
historians. How to integrate them into a history of empire is a
challenging and important task. Antoinette Burton has taken a first
shot at how we may do this from an imperial history perspective,
and for that we should be thankful."--Richard N. Price,
H-Empire
"[Burton] makes her complex and usefully provocative case easily
accessible to a broad range of readers, as she challenges them to
restore agency to colonial subjects, who are all too often in works
of British imperial history largely invisible except as a passive
collectivity [Burton] bolsters the construction of a multicultural
British history--and by extension society--by giving colonial
subjects a central role."--Stephanie Barczewski, Times Literary
Supplement
"Bringing her signature independence of mind and sense of moral
purpose to this work, Antoinette Burton challenges us to think of
the British Empire less as a site of power than as a source of
continuous struggle and instability. Provocative in purpose and
sweeping in scope, The Trouble with Empire demands the attention of
everyone interested in the history of empires."--Dane Kennedy,
George Washington University
"Unmasking what she calls the 'methodological imperialism' that has
taken empire as a given, Antoinette Burton manages to upend
stubborn scholarly and commonplace perceptions that underlie much
of imperial history. Her focus on the routine and everyday
'trouble' at the heart of empire exposes an inherently unstable,
messy, and markedly less-assured enterprise. This brilliant,
passionate, and iconoclastic book will change how we think about
imperial
history."--Mrinalini Sinha, University of Michigan
"Burton brings together trends in feminist and subaltern histories
in order to complicate the historiographical narratives of British
imperialism. Burton aims to provide a counter-narrative to
histories such as Niall Ferguson's Empire: How Britain Made the
Modern World. In doing so, she is bridging the gap between these
more populist histories and scholarly works. New students of
imperialism at the undergraduate level will enjoy this book as
an
introduction to British imperialism, while her nuancing of the
narratives will appeal to a wider audience who may be interested in
histories of empire."--Denis Gonyo, Reviews in History
"Today, in the age of ethno-nationalism on both sides of the
Atlantic, the limits of Western power are more apparent than ever.
The urge to downsize empire in historical writing-to probe the
contradictions and conflicts which undermined it-matches this
moment well. Burton's achievement is to chronicle these weaknesses
while still accounting for the very real damage empire could
do."--Erik Linstrum, Journal of World History
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