Description
Much has been written on how colonial subjects took up British and European ideas and turned them against empire when making claims to freedom and self-determination. The possibility of reverse influence has been largely overlooked. Insurgent Empire shows how Britain's enslaved and colonial subjects were not merely victims of empire, or subsequent beneficiaries of its crises of conscience, but also agents whose resistance both contributed to their own liberation and shaped British ideas about freedom and about who could be free. This book examines dissent over the question of empire in Britain and shows how dissent was influenced by rebellions and resistance in the colonies from the West Indies and East Africa to Egypt and India. It also shows that anticolonial campaigners based in London, at the heart of the empire, played a pivotal role in fomenting dissent.
Reveals how rebellious colonies changed British attitudes to empire.
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