Decline and Fall

Since the 1980s, British history has fallen pretty steadily out of vogue in North American universities. The only strand of it which remains in any sort of demand is imperial and postcolonial studies - and it's easy to see why. The parallels between the decline of the British Empire, and our current global situation, are there for all to see. And on occasion, I find them slightly spooky.

The first time I was struck by this was when the 'global war on terror' was declared in the wake of September 11th. All that rhetoric of bringing freedom and democracy to the benighted Islamic nations of the world...I'd heard it all before, during my doctoral research on British missionaries in India a century ago. The only difference? Substitute 'freedom and democracy' with 'Christianity and civilisation'.

I had another of those odd, rising-of-the-hackles moments again this morning, while listening to today's installment of This Sceptred Isle. It was reviewing the state of the Empire at the turn of the 20th century, and the Pyrrhic aftermath of the Boer War - a war which Britain won, but which severely damaged its prestige and revealed the growing decay within. When the Liberal politician Joseph Chamberlain (the father of 'peace in our time' Neville) was quoted from this 1902 speech, I shivered a little:

We are the most hated nation of the world, and also the best loved. We have the feeling, unfortunately, that we have to count upon ourselves alone, and I say, therefore, it is the duty of British statesmen, and it is the duty of the British people, to count upon themselves alone, as their ancestors did. I say alone, yes, in splendid isolation, surrounded by our kinfolk.