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November 2013The Imperial Examination Pictorial（The color graphic version）
by Yang Xue Wei Qiao Li Juan Li Bing
Imperial examination system, as a main examination system, had exerted its great influence home and abroad. A large number of pictures and documents, such as documentary archives, exam halls, exam papers, exam tools, exam artifacts, exam wood carvings and exam preparations etc, about the changes of Chinese ancient imperial examination over the history are collected in this book and arranged into different categories according to their features. In addition, the simple text introductions to these materials are available. The book presents the development history of several thousands years and system construction of imperial examination, and also its profound influence on Chinese ancient societies to the readers.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Imperial cities
Landscape, display and identity
by Felix Driver, David Gilbert
Imperial cities explores the influence of imperialism in the landscapes of modern European cities including London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Marseilles, Glasgow and Seville. Examines large-scale architectural schemes and monuments, including the Queen Victoria Memorial in London and the Vittoriano in Rome. Focuses on imperial display throughout the city, from spectacular exhibitions and ceremonies, to more private displays of empire in suburban gardens. Cconsiders the changing cultural and political identities in the imperial city, looking particularly at nationalism, masculinity and anti-imperialism.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2023The imperial Commonwealth
Australia and the project of empire, 1867-1914
by Wm. Matthew Kennedy
From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, Australian settler colonists mobilised their unique settler experiences to develop their own vision of what 'empire' was and could be. Reinterpreting their histories and attempting to divine their futures with a much heavier concentration on racialized visions of humanity, white Australian settlers came to believe that their whiteness as well as their Britishness qualified them for an equal voice in the running of Britain's imperial project. Through asserting their case, many soon claimed that, as newly minted citizens of a progressive and exemplary Australian Commonwealth, white settlers such as themselves were actually better suited to the modern task of empire. Such a settler political cosmology with empire at its center ultimately led Australians to claim an empire of their own in the Pacific Islands, complete with its own, unique imperial governmentality.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017
Popular imperialism and the military, 1850-1950
by John M. MacKenzie
Colonial war played a vital part in transforming the reputation of the military and placing it on a standing equal to that of the navy. The book is concerned with the interactive culture of colonial warfare, with the representation of the military in popular media at home, and how these images affected attitudes towards war itself and wider intellectual and institutional forces. It sets out to relate the changing image of the military to these fundamental facts. For the dominant people they were an atavistic form of war, shorn of guilt by Social Darwinian and racial ideas, and rendered less dangerous by the increasing technological gap between Europe and the world. Attempts to justify and understand war were naturally important to dominant people, for the extension of imperial power was seldom a peaceful process. The entertainment value of war in the British imperial experience does seem to have taken new and more intensive forms from roughly the middle of the nineteenth century. Themes such as the delusive seduction of martial music, the sketch of the music hall song, powerful mythic texts of popular imperialism, and heroic myths of empire are discussed extensively. The first important British war correspondent was William Howard Russell (1820-1907) of The Times, in the Crimea. The 1870s saw a dramatic change in the representation of the officer in British battle painting. Up to that point it was the officer's courage, tactical wisdom and social prestige that were put on display.
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2017Curating empire
Museums and the British imperial experience
by Sarah Longair, John McAleer
Curating empire explores the diverse roles played by museums and their curators in moulding and representing the British imperial experience. This collection demonstrates how individuals, their curatorial practices, and intellectual and political agendas influenced the development of a variety of museums across the globe. Taken together, these contributions suggest that museums are not just sites for accessing history but need to be considered as historical sites of significance in themselves. Individual essays examine the work of curators in museums in Britain and the colonies, the historical display and interpretation of empire in Britain, and the establishment of 'museum networks' in the British imperial context. Curating empire sheds new light on the relationship between museums, as repositories for objects and cultural institutions for conveying knowledge, and the politics of culture and the formation of identities throughout the British Empire.
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2017Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation
Passengers, pilots, publicity
by Gordon Pirie, Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie
The new activity of trans-continental civil flying in the 1930s is a useful vantage point for viewing the extension of British imperial attitudes and practices. Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation examines the experiences of those (mostly men) who flew solo or with a companion (racing or for leisure), who were airline passengers (doing colonial administration, business or research), or who flew as civilian air and ground crews. For airborne elites, flying was a modern and often enviable way of managing, using and experiencing empire. On the ground, aviation was a device for asserting old empire: adventure and modernity were accompanied by supremacism. At the time, however, British civil imperial flying was presented romantically in books, magazines and exhibitions. Eighty years on, imperial flying is still remembered, reproduced and re-enacted in caricature.
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2017Visions of empire
Patriotism, popular culture and the city, 1870–1939
by Brad Beaven
The emergence of a vibrant imperial culture in British society from the 1890s both fascinated and appalled contemporaries. It has also consistently provoked controversy among historians. This book offers a ground-breaking perspective on how imperial culture was disseminated. It identifies the important synergies that grew between a new civic culture and the wider imperial project. Beaven shows that the ebb and flow of imperial enthusiasm was shaped through a fusion of local patriotism and a broader imperial identity. Imperial culture was neither generic nor unimportant but was instead multi-layered and recast to capture the concerns of a locality. The book draws on a rich seam of primary sources from three representative English cities. These case studies are considered against an extensive analysis of seminal and current historiography. This renders the book invaluable to those interested in the fields of imperialism, social and cultural history, popular culture, historical geography and urban history.
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2017Welsh missionaries and British imperialism
The Empire of Clouds in north-east India
by Andrew May
In 1841, the Welsh sent their first missionary, Thomas Jones, to evangelise the tribal peoples of the Khasi Hills of north-east India. This book follows Jones from rural Wales to Cherrapunji, the wettest place on earth and now one of the most Christianised parts of India. As colonised colonisers, the Welsh were to have a profound impact on the culture and beliefs of the Khasis. The book also foregrounds broader political, scientific, racial and military ideologies that mobilised the Khasi Hills into an interconnected network of imperial control. Its themes are universal: crises of authority, the loneliness of geographical isolation, sexual scandal, greed and exploitation, personal and institutional dogma, individual and group morality. Written by a direct descendant of Thomas Jones, it makes a significant contribution in orienting the scholarship of imperialism to a much-neglected corner of India, and will appeal to students of the British imperial experience more broadly.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2022Exiting war
The British Empire and the 1918–20 moment
by Romain Fathi, Margaret Hutchison, Andrekos Varnava, Michael Walsh, Alan Lester
Exiting war explores a particular 1918-20 'moment' in the British Empire's history, between the First World War's armistices of 1918, and the peace treaties of 1919 and 1920. That moment, we argue, was a challenging and transformative time for the Empire. While British authorities successfully answered some of the post-war tests they faced, such as demobilisation, repatriation, and fighting the widespread effects of the Spanish flu, the racial, social, political and economic hallmarks of their imperialism set the scene for a wide range of expressions of loyalties and disloyalties, and anticolonial movements. The book documents and conceptualises this 1918-20 'moment' and its characteristics as a crucial three-year period of transformation for and within the Empire, examining these years for the significant shifts in the imperial relationship that occurred and as laying the foundation for later change in the imperial system.
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Colonialism & imperialismJuly 2003Imperial cities
Landscape, display and identity
by Edited by Felix Driver and David Gilbert
Imperial cities explores the influence of imperialism in the landscapes of modern European cities including London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Marseilles, Glasgow and Seville. Examines large-scale architectural schemes and monuments, including the Queen Victoria Memorial in London and the Vittoriano in Rome. Focuses on imperial display throughout the city, from spectacular exhibitions and ceremonies, to more private displays of empire in suburban gardens. Cconsiders the changing cultural and political identities in the imperial city, looking particularly at nationalism, masculinity and anti-imperialism.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Reporting the Raj
The British Press and India, c.1880–1922
by Chandrika Kaul
This book is the first analysis of the dynamics of British press reporting of India and the attempts made by the British Government to manipulate press coverage as part of a strategy of imperial control. The press was an important forum for debate over the future of India and was used by significant groups within the political elite to advance their agendas. Focuses on a period which represented a critical transitional phase in the history of the Raj, witnessing the impact of the First World War, major constitutional reform initiatives, the tragedy of the Amritsar massacre, and the launching of Gandhi's mass movement. Asserts that the War was a watershed in official media manipulation and in the aftermath of the conflict the Government's previously informal and ad hoc attempts to shape press reporting were placed on a more formal basis.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017The harem, slavery and British imperial culture
Anglo-Muslim relations in the late nineteenth century
by Diane Robinson-Dunn
This book focuses on British efforts to suppress the traffic in female slaves destined for Egyptian harems during the late-nineteenth century. It considers this campaign in relation to gender debates in England, and examines the ways in which the assumptions and dominant imperialist discourses of these abolitionists were challenged by the newly-established Muslim communities in England, as well as by English people who converted to or were sympathetic with Islam. While previous scholars have treated antislavery activity in Egypt first and foremost as an extension of earlier efforts to abolish plantation slavery in the New World, this book considers it in terms of encounters with Islam during a period which it argues marked a new departure in Anglo-Muslim relations. This approach illuminates the role of Islam in the creation of English national identities within the global cultural system of the British Empire. This book would appeal to those with an interest in British imperial history; Islam; gender, feminism, and women's studies; slavery and race; the formation of national identities; global processes; Orientalism; and Middle Eastern studies.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2012Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation
Passengers, pilots, publicity
by Gordon Pirie, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie
The new activity of trans-continental civil flying in the 1930s is a useful vantage point for viewing the extension of British imperial attitudes and practices. Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation examines the experiences of those (mostly men) who flew solo or with a companion (racing or for leisure), who were airline passengers (doing colonial administration, business or research), or who flew as civilian air and ground crews. For airborne elites, flying was a modern and often enviable way of managing, using and experiencing empire. On the ground, aviation was a device for asserting old empire: adventure and modernity were accompanied by supremacism. At the time, however, British civil imperial flying was presented romantically in books, magazines and exhibitions. Eighty years on, imperial flying is still remembered, reproduced and re-enacted in caricature. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017From Jack Tar to Union Jack
Representing naval manhood in the British Empire, 1870–1918
by Mary A. Conley
Jack Tar to Union Jack examines the intersection between empire, navy, and manhood in British society from 1870 to 1918. Through analysis of sources that include courts-martial cases, sailors' own writings, and the HMS Pinafore, Conley charts new depictions of naval manhood during the Age of Empire, a period which witnessed the radical transformation of the navy, the intensification of imperial competition, the democratisation of British society, and the advent of mass culture. Jack Tar to Union Jack argues that popular representations of naval men increasingly reflected and informed imperial masculine ideals in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Conley shows how the British Bluejacket as both patriotic defender and dutiful husband and father stood in sharp contrast to the stereotypic image of the brave but bawdy tar of the Georgian navy. This book will be essential reading for students of British imperial history, naval and military history, and gender studies.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017
Imperialism and the natural world
by John M. MacKenzie
Imperial power, both formal and informal, and research in the natural sciences were closely dependent in the nineteenth century. This book examines a portion of the mass-produced juvenile literature, focusing on the cluster of ideas connected with Britain's role in the maintenance of order and the spread of civilization. It discusses the political economy of Western ecological systems, and the consequences of their extension to the colonial periphery, particularly in forms of forest conservation. Progress and consumerism were major constituents of the consensus that helped stabilise the late Victorian society, but consumerism only works if it can deliver the goods. From 1842 onwards, almost all major episodes of coordinated popular resistance to colonial rule in India were preceded by phases of vigorous resistance to colonial forest control. By the late 1840s, a limited number of professional positions were available for geologists in British imperial service, but imperial geology had a longer pedigree. Modern imperialism or 'municipal imperialism' offers a broader framework for understanding the origins, long duration and persistent support for overseas expansion which transcended the rise and fall of cabinets or international realignments in the 1800s. Although medical scientists began to discern and control the microbiological causes of tropical ills after the mid-nineteenth century, the claims for climatic causation did not undergo a corresponding decline. Arthur Pearson's Pearson's Magazine was patriotic, militaristic and devoted to royalty. The book explores how science emerged as an important feature of the development policies of the Colonial Office (CO) of the colonial empire.
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The Imperial Kiln Gold Brick
by Zhou Zhenlin, Jin jin
Gold bricks produced by the imperial kiln in Suzhou in eastern Jiangsu Province are not actually made of gold. The smooth, shiny bricks are big and square. They got their name from their quality, the tedious manufacturing process and the high cost involved. The bricks, which have long been used to build imperial palaces, are a specialty of Lumu, a small village near Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou. In the early 15th century when the Forbidden City began to be constructed, the bricks made in Lumu were recommended to the Ming government (1368-1644). Central government officials assigned to Lumu found the yellow earth in Lumu was especially good to make bricks. Besides the special material, the advanced firing technique and the strict firing procedures of the Lumu kiln also contributed to producing the high-quality gold bricks. Thus the Lumu kiln was named the Imperial Kiln by the Ming emperor.
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