Bloomsbury Academic
An ABC of Queen Victoria's Empire: Or a Primer of Conquest, Dissent and Disruption
Key Metrics
- Antoinette Burton
- Bloomsbury Academic
- Hardcover
- 9781474230155
- 8.6 X 5.6 X 0.6 inches
- 0.8 pounds
- History > Europe - Great Britain - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
An ABC of Queen Victoria's Empire offers a provocative rewriting of Mrs. Ernest Ames' ABCs for Baby Patriots (1899). Whimsically illustrated for the nursery or primary school child, Ames' book demonstrates how deeply imperialism reached into popular culture during Victoria's reign.
This book presents a rather darker view of Victoria's empire, beginning with the wars in Afghanistan and ending with Zam-Zammeh, the large-bore cannon that Kipling's hero sat astride at the opening of his 1901 novel, Kim. It signposts some of the key events, concepts, places and people that shaped the turbulent ground of empire across the long 19th century, providing a serious counterweight to the notion of imperial conquest as child's play.
With each letter accompanied by a crisp yet historically nuanced account of its subject, this unique account is the perfect primer for students taking courses on global, imperial and British history.
Author Bio
I’m a historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire, with a specialty in colonial India and an ongoing interest in Australasia and Africa. I’ve written on topics ranging from feminism and colonialism to the relationship of empire to the nation and the world. Women, gender and sexuality have always been central to my research, much of which has been concerned with the role of Indian women in the imperial and postcolonial imagination. I’ve edited collections about politics, mobility, postcolonialism and empire and have frequently collaborated with Tony Ballantyne.
At Illinois I have taught courses on modern British history and imperialism, gender and colonialism, autobiography and the archive, approaches and methods and world history. I am currently working on a Bloomsbury series on the cultures of western imperialism and a Duke University Press series on history teaching.
I am currently the director of the campus humanities center, The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. I am also the Principal Investigator for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, Humanities Without Walls.
Research Interests
Modern Britain and empire; colonial India; women, gender and feminism; postcolonial studies; world history
Education
B.A. Yale University, 1983
M.A. University of Chicago, 1984
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1990
Source: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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