Liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia

Liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia PDF

Author: Gareth Knapman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-07

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1351622765

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This collection of essays collects the leading scholars on British colonial thought in Southeast Asia to consider the question: what was the relationship between liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia? The empire builders in Southeast Asia: Lord Minto, William Farquhar, John Leyden, Thomas Stamford Raffles, and John Crawfurd - to name a few - were fervent believers in a liberal free trade order in Southeast Asia. Many recent studies of British imperialism, and European imperialism more generally, have addressed how the anti-imperialist tradition of Eighteenth century liberalism was increasingly intertwined with the discourses of empire, freedom, race and economics in the nineteenth century. This collection extends those studies to look at the impact of liberalism on. British colonialism in Southeast Asia and early nineteenth century Southeast Asia we see some of the first attempts at developing multicultural democracies within the colonies, experiments in free trade and attempts to use free trade to prevent war and colonisation.

Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony

Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony PDF

Author: Terence Charles Halliday

Publisher:

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 571

ISBN-13:

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What explains divergences in political liberalism among new nations that shared the same colonial heritage? This book assembles exciting original essays on former colonies of the British Empire in South Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia that gained independence after World War II. The interdisciplinary country specialists reveal how inherent contradictions within British colonial rule were resolved after independence in contrasting liberal-legal, despotic and volatile political orders. Through studies of the longue duree and particular events, this book presents a theory of political liberalism in the post-colony and develops rich hypotheses on the conditions under which the legal complex, civil society and the state shape alternative postcolonial trajectories around political freedom. This provocative volume presents new perspectives for scholars and students of postcolonialism, political development and the politics of the legal complex, as well as for policy makers and publics who struggle to construct and defend basic legal freedoms.

Race and British Colonialism in Southeast Asia, 1770-1870

Race and British Colonialism in Southeast Asia, 1770-1870 PDF

Author: Gareth Knapman

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-10-14

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1315452162

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The idea of "race" played an increasing role in nineteenth-century British colonial thought. For most of the nineteenth century, John Crawfurd towered over British colonial policy in South-East Asia, being not only a colonial administrator, journalist and professional lobbyist, but also one of the key racial theorists in the British Empire. He approached colonialism as a radical liberal, proposing universal voting for all races in British colonies and believing all races should have equal legal rights. Yet at the same time, he also believed that races represented distinct species of people, who were unrelated. This book charts the development of Crawfurd’s ideas, from the brief but dramatic period of British rule in Java, to his political campaigns against James Brooke and British rule in Borneo. Central to Crawfurd’s political battles were the debates he had with his contemporaries, such as Stamford Raffles and William Marsden, over the importance of race and his broader challenge to universal ideas of history, which questioned the racial unity of humanity. The book taps into little explored manuscripts, newspapers and writings to uncover the complexity of a leading nineteenth-century political and racial thinker whose actions and ideas provide a new view of British liberal, colonial and racial thought.

Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony

Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony PDF

Author: Terence C. Halliday

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-03-06

Total Pages: 570

ISBN-13: 9781107682788

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What explains divergences in political liberalism among new nations that shared the same colonial heritage? This book assembles exciting original essays on former colonies of the British Empire in South Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia that gained independence after World War II. The interdisciplinary country specialists reveal how inherent contradictions within British colonial rule were resolved after independence in contrasting liberal-legal, despotic, and volatile political orders. Through studies of the longue durée and particular events, this book presents a theory of political liberalism in the post-colony and develops rich hypotheses on the conditions under which the legal complex, civil society, and the state shape alternative postcolonial trajectories around political freedom. This provocative volume presents new perspectives for scholars and students of postcolonialism, political development, and the politics of the legal complex, as well as for policy makers and publics who struggle to construct and defend basic legal freedoms.

Liberalism in Empire

Liberalism in Empire PDF

Author: Andrew Sartori

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014-07-03

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0520281683

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While the need for a history of liberalism that goes beyond its conventional European limits is well recognized, the agrarian backwaters of the British Empire might seem an unlikely place to start. Yet specifically liberal preoccupations with property and freedom evolved as central to agrarian policy and politics in colonial Bengal.Ê Liberalism in Empire explores the generative crisis in understanding propertyÕs role in the constitution of a liberal polity, which intersected in Bengal with a new politics of peasant independence based on practices of commodity exchange. Thus the conditions for a new kind of vernacular liberalism were created. Andrew SartoriÕs examination shows the workings of a section of liberal policy makers and agrarian leaders who insisted that norms governing agrarian social relations be premised on the property-constituting powers of labor, which opened a new conceptual space for appeals to both political economy and the normative significance of property. It is conventional to see liberalism as traveling through the space of empire with the extension of colonial institutions and intellectual networks. SartoriÕs focus on the Lockeanism of agrarian discourses of property, however, allows readers to grasp how liberalism could serve as a normative framework for both a triumphant colonial capitalism and a critique of capitalism from the standpoint of peasant property.

John Stuart Mill and India

John Stuart Mill and India PDF

Author:

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1994-07

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0804766177

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Beginning as a junior clerk in 1823, John Stuart Mill spent thirty-five years as an administrator in India House, the London headquarters of the East India Company, which dominated the Indian subcontinent. In his Autobiography, Mill paid scant attention to his long imperial career, and following his lead, later commentators have concluded that Indian administration was insignificant for Mill's intellectual development. Based upon extensive investigation of Mill's dispatches to India, this book rejects the long-accepted interpretation and suggests that important parallels exist between Mill's development as a thinker and his neglected India House career. It shows that at each step of Mill's intellectual maturation - rigorous early training at his father's side, youthful rebellion accompanied by a searching out of alternative opinions, and mature retreat from the extreme positions of his rebellious phase - Mill took up or abandoned administrative ideas that have much in common with the more abstract concepts that he was absorbing or shedding. For example, Mill's fascination with Romantic doctrines during the time of his mental crisis is shown to have had an Indian dimension. At the same time Mill concluded that Romantic doctrines were useful for amending Utilitarian ideas, he fell under the influences of key imperial administrators who advanced pragmatic policies for India that reinforced many Romantic ideas. Consequently, Mill modified his father's naive plans for reforming India, just as he altered Utilitarian doctrine in general, in favor of more complex notions about reform and progress. The author explores other parallels in Mill's evolving intellectual and administrative priorities and concludes that at his India House desk Mill found not only plenty of supporting evidence for his shifting intellectual positions but also ample opportunity to apply the abstract ideas that mattered most to him at different times of his life. In this way, the author challenges the picture of Mill's imperial career - as a dull and unimportant part of his life - that Mill painted for posterity in his Autobiography. He further suggests that Mill belittled his long India House experience because it did not fit the narrative structure he wanted to impose on his past. Since the essential story of Mill's Autobiography is one of a great mind being formed by interacting with other great minds, the banal concerns of Indian administration could hardly play a large role. The author also examines Mill's intellectual relationship with imperialism in the light of recent colonial discourse theory. He concludes that Mill altered his general social and political views as a result of the British experience in India and that his mature views of radical reform in Ireland and Great Britain owed much to the years that he spent as an imperial administrator.

Alibis of Empire

Alibis of Empire PDF

Author: Karuna Mantena

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-02-07

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0691128162

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Alibis of Empire presents a novel account of the origins, substance, and afterlife of late imperial ideology. Karuna Mantena challenges the idea that Victorian empire was primarily legitimated by liberal notions of progress and civilization. In fact, as the British Empire gained its farthest reach, its ideology was being dramatically transformed by a self-conscious rejection of the liberal model. The collapse of liberal imperialism enabled a new culturalism that stressed the dangers and difficulties of trying to "civilize" native peoples. And, hand in hand with this shift in thinking was a shift in practice toward models of indirect rule. As Mantena shows, the work of Victorian legal scholar Henry Maine was at the center of these momentous changes. Alibis of Empire examines how Maine's sociotheoretic model of "traditional" society laid the groundwork for the culturalist logic of late empire. In charting the movement from liberal idealism, through culturalist explanation, to retroactive alibi within nineteenth-century British imperial ideology, Alibis of Empire unearths a striking and pervasive dynamic of modern empire.

He Who is Made Lord: Empire, Class and Race in Postwar Singapore

He Who is Made Lord: Empire, Class and Race in Postwar Singapore PDF

Author: Muhammad Suhail bin Mohamed Yazid

Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Published: 2023-06-30

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 9815104314

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In June 1959, the British established the office of Yang di-Pertuan Negara (He Who is Made Lord) to replace the colonial governorship and represent Queen Elizabeth II in Singapore. Muhammad Suhail explores the divergent attempts to invest meaning in the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. In doing so, he weaves a rich story about the contesting ideas of sovereignty during the global age of decolonization. He Who is Made Lord is a captivating take on Singapore’s emergence as a postcolonial nation, providing a gateway into the island’s past as part of the Malay World, the British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. "The Yang di-Pertuan Negara is a subject that has received only passing mentions in the Singapore Story. This book is the first detailed study to reveal not only the politics of its creation but also the cultural significance of the office. By delving into its multifaceted meanings, this insightful account offers readers a fascinating treatise on the office’s connection with the momentous final years of British rule in the colony and Singapore’s brief interlude in Malaysia." -- Associate Professor Albert Lau, Department of History, National University of Singapore "The end of the British Empire wrought considerable change across the globe, but it also left many legacies and questions such as what or who would replace the omnipotent Crown. He Who is Made Lord examines the neglected but fascinating story of how Singapore grappled with this issue, which was more delicate, nuanced and far reaching than most supposed. Muhammad Suhail has made an original, well-researched, and valuable study of the position of Head of State in Singapore during the last stages of colonialism and shows vividly that far from being of ceremonial or administrative interest, it touched on wider and deeper issues in Singaporean and Southeast Asian history and society, reflecting tensions of identity and hopes for the future." -- Dr Harshan Kumarasingham, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh "In this ground-breaking book, Muhammad Suhail has meticulously scoured, scrutinized, and synthesized archival official records, newspaper articles, government publications, pictures, and websites to peel and expose the many layers of the hitherto overlooked office of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara of Singapore to reveal the contradictions, contestations, and constructions of the created office in the context of the tumultuous period of decolonization. Suhail also has laid bare the complex personality of the man who held this office, Yusof Ishak, exposing the myriad of faces, appearances, and roles he represented and was made to represent, appreciating his triumphs and weaknesses, but most importantly, humanizing him." -- Associate Professor Sher Banu A.L. Khan, Department of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore

From the Ruins of Empire

From the Ruins of Empire PDF

Author: Pankaj Mishra

Publisher: Doubleday Canada

Published: 2012-09-04

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0385676115

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The Victorian period, viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire, burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, or humiliated the bankrupt rulers of the Ottoman Empire, it was clear that for Asia to recover a vast intellectual effort would be required. Pankaj Mishra's fascinating, highly entertaining new book tells the story of a remarkable group of men from across the continent who met the challenge of the West. Incessantly travelling, questioning and agonising, they both hated the West and recognised that an Asian renaissance needed to be fuelled in part by engagement with the enemy. Through many setbacks and wrong turns, a powerful, contradictory and ultimately unstoppable series of ideas were created that now lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to Al Qaeda, from Indian nationalism to the Muslim Brotherhood. Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia and created the ideas which lie behind the powerful Asian nations of the twenty-first century.