Understanding the British Empire Ronald Hyam.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Dynamics : geopolitics and economics. The primacy of geopolitics : the dynamics of British imperial policy, 1763-1963 ; The partition of Africa : geopolitical and internal perspectives ; The empire in a comparative global context, 1815-1914 ; The myth of "gentlemanly capitalism" -- Ethics and religion. Peter Peckard, "universal benevolence", and the abolition of the slave trade ; The view from below : the African response to missionaries -- Bureaucracy and policy-making. Bureaucracy and trusteeship in the colonial empire ; Africa and the Labour government, 1945-1951 ; John Bennett and the end of empire -- Great men. Winston Churchill's first years in ministerial office, 1905-1911 ; Churchill and the colonial empire ; Smuts in context : Britain and South Africa -- Sexuality. Empire and sexual opportunity ; Penis envy and "penile othering" in the colonies and America ; Concubinage and the Colonial Service : Silberrad and the Crewe Circular, 1909 ; Greek love in British India : Captain Searight's manuscript -- Imperial historians. Imperial and Commonwealth history at Cambridge, 1881-1981 : founding fathers and pioneer research students ; The Oxford and Cambridge imperial history professoriate, 1919-1981 : Robinson and Gallagher and their predecessors.