Inquiring into Empire : Colonial Commissions and British Imperial Reform, 1819-1833

Ford, Lisa/ McKenzie, Kirsten/ Parkinson, Naomi

Cambridge University Press（2025/02発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 344 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781009470629
• DDC分類 328.304094209034

Full Description

This is the first history to grapple with the vast project of British imperial investigation in the years between the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and the Great Reform Act. Beginning in 1819, commissions of inquiry were sent to examine law, governance, and economy from New South Wales and the Caribbean to Malta and West Africa. They left behind a matchless record of colonial life in the form of papers, reports and more than 200 volumes of testimonies and correspondence. Inquiring into Empire taps this under-used archive to develop a new understanding of imperial reform. The authors argue that, far from being a first step in the march towards liberalism, the commissions represented a deeply pragmatic, messy but concerted effort to chart a middle way between reaction and revolution which was constantly buffeted by the politics of colonial encounter.

Contents

1. Introduction; 2. The State of things; 3. Reordering New South Wales; 4. Remaking Caribbean courts; 5. Defending the crown; 6. Liberated Africans; 7. Bonded labour; 8. Slave traders; 9. Reforming Ceylon; 10. Reporting and reforming; A note on sources; Bibliography; Index.